If I tell you I love you I'd have to kill you
by Mareenia
Summary: Gabriella Montez attends Gallagher Academy or Spy School. she figures she knows a thing or two until she falls for a regular boy who thinks she's a regular girl. Can she play girlfriend to someone who can never know the truth about her?
1. Chapter 1

I suppose a lot of teenage girls feel invisible sometimes, like they just disappear. Well, that's me – Gabriella. But I'm luckier than most because, at my school, that's considered cool.

I go to a school for spies.

Of course technically, the Gallangher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a school for _geniuses_ – not for _spies _– and we're free to pursue any career that befits our exceptional educations. But when a school tells you that, and then teachers you things like advanced encryption and fourteen different languages, it's kind of like big tobacco telling kids not to smoke; so all of us Gallangher Girls know lip service when we hear it.

Even my mom rolls her eyes but doesn't correct me when I call it spy school, and _she's_ the headmistress. Of course, she's also a retired CIA operative, and it was her idea for me to write this, my first Covert Operation Report, to summarize what happened last semester. She's always telling us that the worst part of the spy life isn't the danger – it's the paperwork. After all, when you're on a plane home from Istanbul with a nuclear warhead in a hatbox, the last thing you want to do is write a report about it. So that's why I'm writing this – for the practice.

If you've got a Level Four clearance or higher, you probably know all about us Gallagher Girls since we've been around for more than a hundred years (the school, not me – I turn 17 next month!). But if you don't have that kind of clearance, you probably think we're just an urban spy myth – like jet packs and invisibility suits – and you drive by our ivy-covered walls, look at our gorgeous mansion and manicured grounds, and assume, like everyone else, that the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is just a snooty boarding school for bored heiresses with no place else to go.

Well, to tell you the truth, we're totally fine with that – it's one of the reasons no one in the town of Roseville, Virginia, thought twice about the long line of limousines that brought my classmates back to campus last September. I watched from a window seat on the third floor of the mansion as the cars materialized out of the blankets of green foliage and turned through the towering wrought-iron gates. The half-mile-long driveway curved through the hills, looking as harmless as Dorothy's yellow brick road, not giving a clue that it's equipped with laser beams that read tire treads and sensors that check for explosives, and one entire section that can open up and swallow a truck whole. (If you think that's dangerous, don't even get me started about the pond!)

I wrapped my arms around my knees and stared through the window's wavy glass. The red velvet curtains were drawn around the tiny alcove, and I was enveloped by an odd sense of peace, knowing that in twenty minutes, the halls were going to be crowded; music was going to be blaring; and I was going to go from being an only child to one of a hundred sisters, so I knew to savor the silence while it lasted. Then as to prove my point, a loud blast and the smell of burning hair came gloating up the main stairs from the second-floor Hall of History, followed by Professor Buckingham's distinguished voice crying, "Girls! I told you not to touch that!" The smell got worse, and one of the seventh graders was probably still on fire, because Professor Buckingham yelled, "Stand still. Stand still, I say!"

Then Professor Buckingham said some French curses that the seventh graders probably wouldn't understand for three semesters, and I remembered how every year during new student orientation one of the newbies will get cocky and try to show off by grabbing the sword Gillian Gallagher used to slay the guy who was going to kill Abraham Lincoln – the first guy, that is. The one you never hear about.

But what the newbies aren't told on their campus tour is the Gilly's sword is charged with enough electricity to…well…light your hair on fire.

I just love the start of school.

I think our room used to be an attic, once upon a time. It has these cool dormers and oddly shaped windows and lots of little nooks and crannies, where a girl can sit with her back against the wall and listen to the thundering of feet and swueaks of hello that are probably pretty standard at boarding schools everywhere on the first day after summer break (but they probably stop being standard when they take place in Portuguese and Farsi). Out in the hall, Kim Lee was talking about her summer in Singapore; and Tina Walters was declaring that "Cairo was super cool. Johannesburg – not so much," which is exactly what my mom had said when I'd complained about how Tina's parents were taking her to Africa over the summer whereas I was going to have to visit my dad's parents on their ranch in Nebraska – an experience I'm fairly sure will never help me break out of an enemy interrogation facility or disarm a dirty bomb.

"Hey, where's Gabby?" Tina asked, but I wasn't about to leave my room until I could come up with a fish story to match the international exploits of my classmates, seventy percent of whom are the daughters of current or former government operatives – aka spies. Even Courtney Bauer had spent a week in Paris, and _her_ parents are both optometrists, so you can see why I wasn't especially eager to admit that I'd spent three mouths plopped down right in the middle of North America, cleaning fish.

I'd finally decided to tell them about the time I was experimenting with average household items that can be used as weapons and accidentally decapitated a scarecrow (who knew knitting needles could do that kind of damage?). When I heard the distinctive thud of luggage crashing into a wall and a soft, Southern, "Oh Gabriella…come out, come out, wherever you are."

I peered through the corner and saw Taylor posing in the doorway, trying to look like Miss Alabama, but bearing a greater resemblance to a toothpick in capri pants and flip-flops. A very _red_ toothpick.

She smiled and squealed, "Did you miss me?"

Well, I _did_ miss her, but I was totally afraid to hug her.

"What happened to you?"

Taylor rolled her eyes and just said, "Don't fall asleep by a pool in Alabama," as if she should have known better- which she totally should have. I mean, we're all technically geniuses and everything, but if I'm ever on a mission, I want Sharpay beside me and Taylor far, far away. I couldn't help but remember when Taylor tried to fling her suitcase onto the bed, but missed and ended up knocking over a bookcase, demolishing my stereo and flattening a perfectly-scaled replica of DNA that I'd made out of papier mâché in eighth grade. But I still love her, and at that point I didn't care how sunburned she was p I had to hug my friend.

At six thirty exactly, we were in our uniforms, sliding our hands over the smooth mahogany banisters, and descending down the staircases that spiral gracefully to the foyer floor. Everyone was laughing (turns out my knitting needle story was a big hit), but Taylor and I kept looking toward the door in the centre of the atrium below.

"Maybe there was trouble with the plane?" Taylor whispered. "Or customs? Or…I'm sure she's just late."

I nodded and continued glancing down at the foyer as if, on cue, Sharpay was going to burst through the doors. But they remained closed, and Taylor's voice got squeakier as she asked, "Did you hear from her? I didn't hear from her. Why didn't we hear from her?"

Well, I would have been surprised if we _had_ heard from her, to tell you the truth. As soon as Sharpay had told us that both her mom and her dad were taking a leave of absence to spend the summer with her, I knew she wasn't going to be much of a pen pal. Leave it to Taylor to a completely different conclusion.

"Oh my god! What if she dropped out?" Taylor cranked up the franticness in her voice. "Did she get _kicked_ out?"

"Why would you think that?"

"Well…" she said, stumbling over the obvious, "Sharpay always has been kind of _rules-optional._" Taylor shrugged, and sadly, I couldn't disagree. "And why else would she be late? Gallagher Girls are never late! Gabby, you know something, don't you? You've got to know _something_!"

Times like this are when it's no fun being the headmistress's daughter because A) it's totally annoying when people think I'm in a loop I'm not in, and B) people always assume I'm in partnership with the staff, which really I'm not. Sure, I have private dinners with my mom on Sunday nights, and _sometimes_ she leaves me alone in her office for five seconds, but that's it. Whenever school is in session I'm just another Gallagher Girl (except for being the girl whom the aforementioned A and B apply).

I looked back down at the front doors, the turned to Taylor. "I bet she's just late," I said, praying that there would be a pop quiz over supper (nothing distracts Taylor faster than a pop quiz).

As we approached the massive, open doors of the Grand Hall, where Gilly Gallagher supposedly poisoned a man at her own cotillion, I involuntarily glanced up at the electronic screen that read "English – American" even though I knew we always talk in our own language and accents for the welcome-back dinner. Our mealtime conversations wouldn't be taking place is "chinese – Mandarin" for at least a week, I hoped.

We settled down at our usual table in the Grand Hall, and I finally felt at home. Of course, I'd actually been back for three weeks, but my only company had been the newbies and the staff. The only thing worse than being the only upper classman in a mansion full of seventh graders is handing out in the teachers' lounge watching your Ancient Languages professor put drops in his ears of the world's foremost authority on data encryption while he swears he'll never go scuba diving again. (Ew, mental picture of Mr. Mosckowitz in a wet suit! Gross!).

Since a girl can only read so many back issues of _Espionage Today_, I usually spent those pre-semester days wandering around the mansion, discovering hidden compartments and secret passageways that are at least a hundred years old and haven't seen a good dusting in about that long. Mostly, I tried to spend time with my mom, but she'd been super busy and totally distracted. Remembering this now, I thought about Sharpay's mysterious absence and suddenly began to worry that maybe Taylor had been onto something then Anna Fetterman squeezed onto the bench next to Taylor and asked, "Have you seen it? Did you look?"

Anna was holding a blue slip of paper that instantly dissolves when you put it in your mouth. (Even thought it _looks_ like it will taste like cotton-candy, it doesn't – trust me!) I don't know why they always put our class schedules of Evapopaper – Probably so we can use up our stash of the bad-tasting kind and move on to the good stuff, like mint chocolate chit.

But Anna wasn't thinking about the Evapopaper flavour when she yelled, "We have Covert Operations!" She sounded absolutely terrified, and I remembered that she was probably the only Gallagher Girl that Taylor could take in a fist fight. I looked at Taylor, and even she rolled her eyes at Anna's hysterics. After all, everyone knows sophomore year is the first time we get to do anything that even approaches actual fieldwork. It's our first exposure to real spy stuff, but Anna seemed to be forgetting that the class itself was, sadly, kind of like a catwalk.

"I'm pretty sure we can handle it." Taylor soothed, prying the paper from Anna's frail hands. "All Buckingham does is tell horror stories about all the stuff she saw in world war two and show slides, remember? Ever since she broke her hip she's -"

"But Bucking ham is out!" Anna exclaimed, and _this_ got my attention.

I'm sure I stared at her for a second or two before saying.

"Professor Buckingham is still here, Anna," not adding that I'd spent half the morning coaxing Onyx, her cat, down from the top shelf of the staff library. "That's got to be just a start-of-school rumour." There were always plenty of those – like how some girl got kidnapped by terrorists, or one of the staff members won a hundred grand on _Wheel of Fortune_.

"No" Anna said. "You don't understand. Buckingham's doing some kind of semiretirement thing. She's gonna do orientation and acclimation for the newbies – but that's it. She's not teaching anymore."

Wordlessly, our heads turned, and we counted seats at the staff table. Sure enough, there was an extra chair

"Then who's teaching CoveOps?" I asked.

Just then a loud murmur rippled through the enormous room as my mom strolled through the doors at the back of the hall, followed by all the usual suspects – twenty teachers, twenty-one chairs. I know I'm the genius but you do the math.

Taylor, Anna, and I all looked at each other, then back at the staff table as we ran through the faces, trying to comprehend that extra chair.

One face _was _ new, but we were expecting that, because Professor Smith always returns from summer vacation with a whole new look – literally. His nose was larger, his ears more prominent, and a small mole had been added to his left temple, disguising what he claimed was the most wanted face on three continents. Rumour has it he's wanted by gun smugglers in the Middle East, ex-KGB hit men in Eastern Europe, and a very upset ex-wife somewhere in Brazil. Sure, all this experience makes him a great Countries of the World Professor, but the best thing Professor Smith brings to the Gallagher Academy is the annual anticipation of guessing what face he will assume in order to enjoy his summer break. He hasn't come back as a woman yet, but it's probably just a matter of time. The teachers took their seats, but _the chair_ stayed empty as my mother took her place at the podium in the centre of the long head table.

"Welcome back, students" she said, beaming. "This is going to be a wonderful year here at the Gallagher Academy. For our newest members" – she turned to the table of seventh graders, who seemed to shiver under her intense gaze – "welcome. You are about to begin the most challenging year of your young lives. Rest assured that you would not have been given this challenge were you not up to it. To our returning students, this year will mark many changes." She glanced at her colleagues and seemed to ponder something before turning back to face us. "We have come to a time when – " But before she could finish, the doors flew open, and not even three years of training at a spy school prepared me for what I saw.

Before I say any more, I should probably remind you that I GO TO A GIRLS' SCHOOL – that's ALL girls ALL the time, with a few ear-drop-needing, plastic-surgery-getting male faculty members thrown in for good measure. But when we turned around, we saw a man walking in our midst who would have made James Bond feel insecure. Indiana Jones would have looked like a momma's boy compared to the man in the leather jacket with two days growth stubble who walked to where my mother stood and then – horror of all horrors – winked at her.

"Sorry I'm late," he said as he slid into the empty chair. His presence was so unprecedented, so surreal, that I didn't even realize Sharpay had squeezed onto the bench between Taylor and Anna, and I had to do a double take when I saw her, and remembered that 5 seconds before she'd been MIA.

"Trouble, ladies?" she giggled

"Where have you been?" Taylor demanded

"Forget that." Anna cut in. "Who is _he_?"

But Sharpay was a natural-born spy. She just raised her eyebrows and said, "You'll see."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Sharpay had spent six hours on a private jet, but her cappuccino-colored skin was glowing, and she

looked as if she'd just walked out of a Noxzema commercial, so I really wanted to be petty and

point out that the sign in the foyer said we were supposed to be speaking English with _American_

accents during the Welcome Back Dinner. But as the only non-U.S. citizen Gallagher Girl in

history, Sharpay was used to being an exception. My mom had bent some serious rules when her old

friends from England's MI6 called and asked if their daughter could be a Gallagher Girl.

Admitting Sharpay had been Mom's first controversial act as headmistress (but _not _her last).

"You have a good holiday, then?" Throughout the hall, girls were beginning to eat, but Sharpay just

blew a bubble with her gum and grinned, daring us to ask her for the story.

"Sharpay, if you know something, you've got to tell us," Taylor demanded, even though it was totally

pointless. _No one _can make Sharpay do _anything _she doesn't want to do. I may be a chameleon, and

Taylor may be the next Einstein, but when it comes to general stubbornness, Sharpay is the best spy ever!

She smirked, and I knew she'd probably been planning this scene since she was halfway over the

Atlantic Ocean (in addition to being stubborn, Sharpay is also quite theatrical). She waited until all

eyes were on her—holding the silence until Taylor was about to explode, then she took a warm roll

from the basket on the table and nonchalantly said, "New teacher." She tore the bread in half and

slowly buttered it. "We gave him a ride from London this morning. He's an old pal of my

father's."

"Name?" Taylor asked, probably already planning how she was going to hack into the CIA

headquarters at Langley for details as soon as we were free to go back to our rooms.

"Solomon," Sharpay said, eyeing us. "Joe Solomon." She sounded eerily like the black, teenage,

female James Bond.

We all turned to look at Joe Solomon. He had the scruffy beard and restless hands of an agent

fresh off a mission. Around me, the hall filled with whispers and giggles— fuel that would have

the rumor mill running on high by midnight—and I remembered that, even though the Gallagher

Academy is a school for girl geniuses, sometimes the emphasis should be kept on the _girl._

The next morning was torture. Absolute torture! And that's _not _a word I use lightly, considering

the family business. So maybe I should rephrase: the first day of classes was _challenging._

We didn't exactly go to bed early … or even a little late … or even at all, unless you count lying

on the faux-fur rug in the common room with the entire sophomore class sprawled around me as

the basis for a good night's sleep. When Taylor woke us up at seven, we decided we could either

primp for an hour and skip breakfast, or throw on our uniforms and eat like queens, before

Professor Smith's 8:05 COW lecture.

B.S. (Before Solomon), waffles and bagels would have won out for sure. But today, Professor

Smith had a lot of eye-lined and lip-glossed girls with growling stomachs listening to him talk

about civil unrest in the Baltic States when 8:30 rolled around. I looked at my watch, the ultimate

pointless gesture at the Gallagher Academy, because classes run precisely on time, but I had to see

how many seconds were standing between me and lunch. (11,705, just in case you're curious.)

When COW was over, we ran up two flights of stairs to the fourth floor for Madame Dabney's

Culture and Assimilation lessons which, sadly, that day did not include tea. Then it was time for

third period.

I had a pain in my neck from sleeping funny, at least five hours' worth of homework, and a

newfound reaTayloration that woman cannot live on cherry-flavored lip gloss alone. I dug in the

bottom of my bag and found a very questionable breath mint, and figured that if I was going to

die of starvation, I should at least have minty-fresh breath for the benefit of whatever classmate or

faculty member would be forced to give me CPR.

Taylor had to go by Mr. Mosckowitz's office to drop off an extra-credit essay she'd written over the

summer (yeah, she's _that _girl), so I was alone with Sharpay when we reached the base of the grand

staircase and turned into the small corridor that was one of three ways to the Subs, or subfloors,

where we'd never been allowed before.

Standing in front of the full-length mirror, we tried hard not to blink or do anything that might

confuse the optical scanner that was going to verify that we were, in fact, sophomores and not

freshmen trying to sneak down to the Subs on a dare. I studied our reflections and reaTaylored that I,

Gabriella Montez, the headmistress's daughter, who knew more about the school than any

Gallagher Girl since Gilly herself, was getting ready to go deeper into the vault of Gallagher

secrets. Judging from the goose bumps on Sharpay's arm, I wasn't the only one who got chills at the

thought of it.

A green light flashed in the eyes of a painting behind us. The mirror slid aside, revealing a small

elevator that would take us one floor beneath the basement to the Covert Operations classroom

and—if you want to be dramatic about it—our destinies.

"Gabby," Sharpay said slowly, "we're in."

We were sitting calmly, checking our (synchronized) watches, and all thinking the exact same

thing: something is definitely different.

The Gallagher mansion is made of stone and wood. It has carved banisters and towering fireplaces

a girl can curl up in front of on snowy days and read all about who killed JFK (the _real _story), but

somehow that elevator had brought us into a space that didn't belong in the same century, much

less the same building, as the rest of the mansion. The walls were frosted glass. The tables were

stainless steel. But the absolute weirdest thing about the Covert Operations classroom was that

our teacher wasn't in it.

Joe Solomon was late—so late, I was beginning to get a little resentful that I hadn't taken the time

to go steal some M&M's from my mom's desk, because, frankly, a two-year-old Tic Tac simply

doesn't satisfy the hunger of a growing girl.

We sat quietly as the seconds ticked away, but I guess the silence became too much for Tina

Walters, because she leaned across the aisle and said, "Gabby, what do you know about him?"

Well, I only knew what Sharpay had told me, but Tina's mom writes a gossip column in a major

metropolitan newspaper that shall remain nameless (since that's her cover and all), so there was

no way Tina wasn't going to try to get to the bottom of this story. Soon I was trapped under an

avalanche of questions like, "Where's he from?" and "Does he have a girlfriend?" and "Is it true

he killed a Turkish ambassador with a thong?" I wasn't sure if she was talking about the sandals or

the panties, but in any case, I didn't have the answer.

"Come on," Tina said, "I heard Madame Dabney telling Chef Louis that your mom was working

on him all summer to get him to take the job. You had to hear something!"

So Tina's interrogation did have one benefit: I finally understood the hushed phone calls and

locked doors that had kept my mother distracted for weeks. I was just starting to process what it

meant, when Joe Solomon strolled into class—five minutes late.

His hair was slightly damp, his white shirt neatly pressed—and it's either a tribute to his

dreaminess or our education that it took me two full minutes to reaTaylore he was speaking in

Japanese.

"What is the capital of Brunei?"

"Bandar Seri Begawan," we replied.

"The square root of 97,969 is …" he asked in Swahili.

"Three hundred and thirteen," Taylor answered in math, because, as she likes to remind us, math _is_

the universal language.

"A Dominican dictator was assassinated in 1961," he said in Portuguese. "What was his name?"

In unison, we all said "Rafael Trujillo."

(An act, I would like to point out, that was _not _committed by a Gallagher Girl, despite rumors to

the contrary.)

I was just starting to get into the rhythm of our little game, when Mr. Solomon said, "Close your

eyes," in Arabic.

We did as we were told.

"What color are my shoes?" This time he spoke in English and, amazingly, thirteen Gallagher

Girls sat there quietly without an answer.

"Am I right-handed or left-handed?" he asked, but didn't pause for a response. "Since I walked

into this room I have left fingerprints in five different places. Name them!" he demanded, but was

met with empty silence.

"Open your eyes," he said, and when I did, I saw him sitting on the corner of his desk, one foot on

the floor and the other hanging loosely off the side. "Yep," he said. "You girls are pretty smart.

But you're also kind of stupid."

If we hadn't known for a scientific fact that the earth simply can't stop moving, we all would have

sworn it had just happened.

"Welcome to Covert Operations. I'm Joe Solomon. I've never taught before, but I've been doing

this stuff for eighteen years, and I'm still breathing, so that means I know what I'm talking about.

This is _not _going to be like your other classes."

My stomach growled, and Taylor, who had opted for a full breakfast and a ponytail, said, "Shhh," as

if I could make it stop.

"Ladies, I'm going to get you ready for what goes on." He paused and pointed upward. "Out there.

It's not for everyone, and that's why I'm going to make this hard on you. Damn hard. Impress me,

and next year those elevators might take you one floor lower. But if I have even the slightest

suspicion that you are not supremely gifted in the area of fieldwork, then I'm going to save your

life right now and put you on the Operations and Research track."

He stood and placed his hands in his pockets. "Everyone starts in this business looking for

adventure, but I don't care what your fantasies look like, ladies. If you can't get out from behind

those desks and show me something other than book smarts, then none of you will ever see

Sublevel Two."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mick Morrison following his every word, almost salivating at

the sound of it, because Mick had been wanting to hurt someone for years. Unsurprisingly, her

beefy hand flew into the air. "Does that mean you'll be teaching us firearms, sir?" she shouted as if

a drill sergeant might make her drop and do push-ups.

But Mr. Solomon only walked around the desk and said, "In this business, if you need a gun, then

it's probably too late for one to do any good." Some of the air seemed to go out of Mick's welltoned

body. "But on the bright side," he told her, "maybe they'll bury you with it—that's assuming

you get to be buried."

My skin burned red. Tears filled my eyes. Before I even knew what was happening, my throat was

so tight I could barely breathe as Joe Solomon stared at me. Then, as soon as my eyes locked with

his, he glanced away.

"The lucky ones come home, even if it _is _in a box."

Although he hadn't mentioned me by name, I felt my classmates watching me. They all know

what happened to my dad—that he went on a mission, that he didn't come home. I'll probably

never know any more than those two simple facts, but that those two facts were all that mattered.

People call me The Chameleon here—if you go to spy school, I guess that's a pretty good

nickname. I wonder sometimes what made me that way, what keeps me still and quiet when Taylor is

jabbering and Sharpay is, well, _Sharpaying. _Am I good at going unnoticed because of my spy genetics or

because I've always been shy? Or am I just the girl people would rather not see—lest they reaTaylore

how easily it could happen to them.

Mr. Solomon took another step, and my classmates pulled their gazes away just that quickly—

everyone but Sharpay, that is. She was inching toward the edge of her chair, ready to keep me from

tearing out the gorgeous green eyes of our new hot teacher as he said, "Get good, ladies. Or get

dead."

A part of me wanted to run straight to my mother's office and tell her what he'd said, that he was

talking about Dad, implying that it had been his fault—that he wasn't _good enough. _But I stayed

seated, possibly out of paralyzing anger but more probably because I feared, somewhere inside

me, that Mr. Solomon was right and I didn't want my mother to say so.

Just then, Anna Fetterman pushed through the frosted-glass doors and stood panting in front of the

class. "I'm sorry," she said to Mr. Solomon, still gasping for breath. "The stupid scanners didn't

recognize me, so the elevator locked me in, and I had to listen to a five-minute prerecorded

lecture about trying to sneak out of bounds, and…" Her voice trailed off as she studied the teacher

and his very unimpressed expression, which I thought was a little hypocritical coming from a man

who had been five minutes late himself.

"Don't bother taking a seat," Mr. Solomon said as Anna started toward a desk in the back of the

room. "Your classmates were just leaving."

We all looked at our recently synchronized watches, which showed the exact same thing—we had

forty-five minutes of class time left. Forty-five valuable and never-wasted minutes. After what

seemed like forever, Taylor's hand shot into the air.

"Yes?" Joe Solomon sounded like someone with far better things to do.

"Is there any homework?" she asked, and the class turned instantly from shocked to irritated.

(Never ask _that _question in a room full of girls who are all black belts in karate.)

"Yes," Solomon said, holding the door in the universal signal for _get out. _"Notice things."

As I headed down the slick white hallway to the elevator that had brought me there, I heard my

classmates walking in the opposite direction, toward the elevator closest to our rooms. After what

had just happened, I was glad to hear their footsteps going the other way. I wasn't surprised when

Sharpay came to stand beside me.

"You okay?" she asked, because that's a best friend's job.

"Yes," I lied, because that's what spies do.

We rode the elevator to the narrow first-floor hallway, and as the doors slid open, I was seriously

considering going to see my mother (and not just for the M&M's), when I stepped into the dim

corridor and heard a voice cry, "Gabriella Montez!"

Professor Buckingham was rushing down the hall, and I couldn't imagine what would make the

genteel British lady speak in such a way, when, above us, a red light began to whirl, and a

screaming buzzer pierced our ears so that we could barely hear the cries of the electronic voice

that pulsed with the light, "CODE RED. CODE RED. CODE RED."

"Gabriella Montez!" Buckingham bellowed again, grabbing Sharpay and me by our arms. "Your

mother needs you. NOW!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Instantly, the corridors went from empty to overflowing as girls ran and staff members hurried

and the red lights continued to pulse off and on.

A shelf of trophies spun around, sending the plaques and ribbons commemorating winners in the

annual hand-to-hand combat and team code-breaking competitions to the hidden compartment

behind the wall, leaving a row of awards from swim meets and debate contests in its place.

Above us, in the upper story of the foyer, three gold-and-burgundy _Learn Her Skills, Honor Her_

_Sword, _and _Keep Her Secrets _banners rolled miraculously up and were replaced by handmade

posters supporting someone named Emily for student council president.

Buckingham dragged Sharpay and me up the sweeping staircase as a flock of newbies ran down,

screeching at the top of their lungs. I remembered what those sirens had sounded like the first

time I'd heard them. It was no wonder the girls were acting like it was the end of the world.

Buckingham yelled, "Girls!" and silenced them. "Follow Madame Dabney. She's going to take

you to the stables for the afternoon. And ladies"—she snapped at a pair of dark-haired twins who

seemed to be especially frantic—"composure!"

And then Buckingham whirled and raced up the staircase to the second-story landing, where Mr.

Mosckowitz and Mr. Smith were trying to wheel a statue of Eleanor Everett (the Gallagher Girl

who had once disabled a bomb in the White House with her teeth) into a broom closet. We swept

through the Hall of History, where Gillian's sword slid smoothly into the vault beneath its case

like Excalibur returning to the Lady of the Lake, and was replaced by a bust of a man with

enormous ears who was supposedly the school's first headmaster.

The entire school was in a state of organized chaos. Sharpay and I shared a questioning look, because

we were supposed to be downstairs, helping the other sophomores check the main level for

anything spy-related that someone might have left lying around, but Buckingham turned and

snapped, "Girls, hurry!" She sounded less like the soft, elderly teacher we knew and more like the

woman who had single-handedly taken out a Nazi machine gun on D-day.

I heard a crash behind us, followed by some Polish expletives, and knew that the Eleanor Everett

statue was probably in a billion pieces; but at the end of the Hall of History, my mother was

leaning against the double doors of her office, dropping an M&M into her mouth as calmly as if

she were waiting to pick me up from soccer practice, acting like it was just an ordinary day.

Her long dark hair fell across the shoulder of her black pants suit. A wisp of bangs brushed across

a flawless forehead that she swears I'll have, too, just as soon as my hormones stop waging war

with my pores.

Sometimes I'm seriously glad that we live ninety percent of our lives inside the mansion, because

whenever we do leave, I have to watch men drool over my mom, or _(ick) _ask if we're sisters,

which totally freaks me out, even though I know I should be flattered that anyone would think I

was related to her at all.

In short, my mom's a hottie.

"Hey, Cam, Rebecca," she said before turning to Buckingham. "Thanks for bringing them,

Patricia. Come inside a sec."

Inside her office, thanks to its soundproofed walls, the mayhem of the rest of the school

completely faded away. Light streamed through leaded windows and flashed upon mahogany

paneling and floor-to-ceiling bookcases that were, even as we spoke, spinning around to hide

tomes like _Poisons Through the Ages _and A _Praetorian's Guide to an Honorable Death, _replacing

them with a flip side of volumes like _Educating the Upper Echelon _and _Private Education_

_Monthly. _There was a photo on her desk of the two of us on vacation in Russia, and I watched in

awe as we hugged and smiled in the frame while, in the background, the Kremlin was replaced by

Cinderella's Castle at Disney World.

"Holographic, radio-synthesized photo paper," mom said, when she saw my gaping mouth. "Dr.

Fibs whipped up a batch in his lab over the summer. Hungry?" She held her cupped hand toward

Sharpay and me. Amazingly, I'd forgotten all about my empty stomach, but I took a green piece for

good luck. Something told me we were going to need it.

"Girls, I need you to do a tour."

"But…we're sophomores!" Sharpay exclaimed, as if my mother had mysteriously forgotten.

Mom's mouth was full of chocolate, so Buckingham explained, "The juniors are beginning their

semester with interrogation tactics, so they are all under the influence of sodium pentothal at the

moment, and the seniors are being fitted with their night-vision contacts, and they won't un-dilate

for at least two hours. This is most unfortunate timing, but Code Reds are such for a reason. We

don't know when they'll happen and, well, one is happening now."

"What do you say?" Mom asked, smiling. "Can you help us out?"

There are three things a person has to be before they show up uninvited on the doorstep of the

Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women: persistent, powerful, and completely out of

other options. After all, most potential students never make it past the "We are not accepting

applications at this time" speech they get whenever they call or write; you have to be turned down

by every prep school in the country before you actually drive all the way to Roseville, hoping that

an in-person visit will change our minds. But no amount of persistence or desperation can get you

through the gates. No, for that, it takes real power.

That's why Sharpay and I were standing on the front steps, waiting on the black stretch limousine that

carried the McHenry family (yes, _those _McHenrys—the ones on the cover of last December's

_Newsweek) _to drive down the winding lane. They were the kind of people who aren't easily turned

away, and we learned a long time ago that the best place to hide is in plain sight, so Sharpay and I

were there to welcome them to Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women. Our mission:

make sure they never know just _how _exceptional we really are.

The man who stepped out of the limo wore a charcoal gray suit jacket and power tie; the woman

looked like the cosmetics heiress she was—not a hair or lash out of place— and I wondered if my

cherry lip gloss would impress her. Judging from the scowl on her face, it didn't.

"Senator," Sharpay said, extending her hand toward the man, sounding as American as apple pie and

loving the charade. "Welcome to the Gallagher Academy. It's an honor to have you with us today."

I thought she was laying it on a little thick until Senator McHenry smiled and said, "Thank you.

It's wonderful to be here," as if he didn't reaTaylore she couldn't vote.

"I'm Rebecca," Sharpay said. "This is Gabriella." The senator glanced at me then looked quickly back

to Sharpay, who looked like a picture-perfect model of an elite education. "We're happy to show you

and …" And that's when Sharpay and I both reaTaylored that their daughter hadn't appeared. "Is your

daughter going to be…"

But just then, a black combat boot emerged from the limousine.

"Darling," the senator said, pointing toward the stables, "come look. They have horses."

"Oh, is _that _what I smell?" Mrs. McHenry said with a shudder. (For the record, our school smells

just fine, unless of course your smelling ability has been irreparably damaged by a lifetime of

sniffing perfume samples.)

But the senator glared at his wife and said, "Macey loves horses."

"No, Macey _hates _horses," Mrs. McHenry said, narrowing her eyes and glancing toward Sharpay and

me as if to remind the senator not to contradict her in front of the help. "She fell off one and broke

her arm."

I was thinking about disrupting this little display of domestic bliss to tell them both that there

weren't any horses in the stables—just freaked-out seventh graders and a former French spy who

had invented a way of sending coded messages in cheese, when a voice said, "Yeah, they make

great glue."

Now, I don't know this for a fact, but I'm pretty sure Macey McHenry had never touched a horse

in her life. Her legs were long and athletic; her clothes, though punk and rebellious, were

definitely high-end, and the diamond in her nose was at least a carat and a half. Her hair might

have been stark black and bluntly cut, but it was also thick and shiny, and it framed a face that

belonged on the cover of a magazine.

I've seen enough TV and movies to know that if a girl like Macey McHenry can't survive high

school, then someone like me would probably get eaten alive. And yet, something had driven her

to our gates—making us her last resort. Or so her parents thought.

"We're …" I stammered, because I may be a whiz at poison-concocting, but good at public

speaking—I'm not! "We're really happy to have you here."

"Then why did you keep us sitting"—Mrs. McHenry cocked her head toward the iron gates—"out

there for over an hour?"

"I'm afraid that's standard protocol for people who come without appointments," Sharpay said in her

most honor-student-y voice. "Security is a top concern here at the Gallagher Academy. If your

daughter were to go here, you could expect that same level of protection."

But Mrs. McHenry's hands were on her hips when she snapped, "Don't you know who he is? Do

you know—"

"We were on our way back to D.C.," the senator stepped in, cutting his wife off. "And we just

couldn't resist bringing Macey by for a visit." He sent his wife a _this is our last chance, don't blow_

_it _look as he added, "And the security is most impressive."

Sharpay opened the front doors and welcomed them inside, but all I could do was watch them go and

think, _Senator, you have no idea._

Sharpay and I got to sit in Mom's office as she went through her standard speech about the school's

"history." Really, it's not all that different from the truth, just _abridged. _A lot.

"We have graduates working all over the world," Mom said, and I thought, _Yeah, as spies. _"We

focus on languages, math, science, and culture. Those are the things our graduates tell us they've

needed most in their lives." As _spies. _"By admitting only young women, our students develop a

sense of empowerment, which enables them to be highly successful." As _spies._

I was just starting to enjoy my little game, when Mom turned to Sharpay and said, "Rebecca, why

don't you and Gabby show Macey around?" and I knew it was showtime.

Sharpay glowed, but all I could do was think about how we'd only had one half of a covert operations

course, yet we were already going on a mission! How was I supposed to know how to act? Sure,

if Macey wanted to conjugate Chinese verbs or break KGB codes, I was perfectly trained, but our

mission was to act normally, and that's something I'm totally not qualified to do! Luckily, Sharpay just

likes to act. Period.

"Senator," Sharpay said, gripping his hand, "it was an _honor _meeting you, sir. And you, too, ma'am."

She smiled at Mrs. McHenry. "So glad that you both—"

"Thank _you, _Rebecca," Mom cut Sharpay off with her don't-overdo-it voice.

Macey stood and, with a flurry of her ultra-miniskirt, was through the door and into the Hall of

History without even a glance at her parents.

Macey was leaning against a cabinet that normally chronicled the history of the gas mask (a

device on which the Gallagher Academy holds the patent, thank you very much), lighting up a

cigarette, when we caught up. She took a long confident drag and then blew smoke toward a

ceiling that probably held a dozen different kinds of sensors, the least of which was for smoke.

"You've got to put that out," Sharpay said, entering the make-sure-she-knows-she'd-be-miserable-here

phase of the operation. "At the Gallagher Academy, we value personal health and safety."

Macey looked at Sharpay as if she'd been speaking Chinese. I had to think for a moment to make sure

she hadn't.

"No smoking," I translated as I pulled an empty aluminum can from a recycling bin at the top of

the stairs and held it toward her.

She took another drag and then looked at me as if to say she'd stub out her cigarette when I forced

her, which I _could, _of course, but she wasn't supposed to know that. "Fine," I said, and turned to

stalk off. "Your lungs."

But Sharpay was glaring at her and, unlike me, she actually looked capable of throwing someone off

the landing; so with one last drag, our guest dropped the cigarette into the empty Diet Coke can

and followed me down the stairs as a wave of girls pushed past us.

"It's lunchtime," I explained, reaTayloring that the green M&M had gotten together with the Tic Tac

in my stomach and were trying to convince me that they would like some company. "We can go

eat if you want—"

"I don't _think _so!" Macey cried with a roll of her eyes.

But stupid me jumped to say, "Really, the food here is great," which totally didn't serve our

mission objective, since gross food is usually a pretty good turnoff. But our chef _is _amazing. He

actually worked at the White House before this incident involving Fluffy (the First Poodle), a

gastronomical chemical agent, and some very questionable cheese. Luckily, a Gallagher Girl

saved poor Fluffy's life, so to show his appreciation, Chef Louis came to us and brought his

awesome crème brûlée with him.

I started to mention the crème brûlée, but then Macey exclaimed, "I eat eight hundred calories a

day."

Sharpay and I looked at each other, amazed. We probably burned that many calories during one

session of P&E (Protection and Enforcement) class.

Macey studied us skeptically, then added, "Food is _so yesterday."_

Unfortunately, that was the last time I'd had some.

We reached the foyer, and I said, "This is the Grand Hall," because that sounded like a school

tour-y thing to say, but Macey acted like I wasn't even there as she turned to Sharpay (her physical

equal) and said, "So _everyone _wears those uniforms?"

I found this to be particularly offensive, having been on the uniform selection committee, but Sharpay

just fingered her knee-length navy plaid skirt and matching white blouse and said, "We even wear

them during gym class." Good one, I thought, taking in the horror on Macey's face as Sharpay stepped

toward the east corridor and said, "Here we have the library—"

But Macey was heading down another hallway. "What's down here?" And just like that she was

gone, passing classrooms and hidden passageways with every step. Sharpay and I jogged to keep up

with her, throwing out pieces of made-up trivia like "That painting was a gift from the Duke of

Edinburgh" or "Oh, yes, the Wizenhouse Memorial Chandelier," or my personal favorite, "This is

the Washington Memorial Chalkboard." (It really is a nice chalkboard.)

Sharpay was in the middle of a pretty believable story about how, if a girl gets a perfect score on a

test, she's allowed to watch one whole hour of television that week, when Macey plopped down in

one of my favorite window seats, pulled out a cell phone, and proceeded to make a call right in

front of us without so much as an excuse me. (Rude!) The joke was on her, though, since, after

dialing in the number, she held the device out in front of her in bewilderment.

Sharpay and I glanced at each other, and then I tried to sound all sympathetic as I said, "Yeah, cell

phones don't work here." _TRUE._

"We're too far from a tower," Sharpay added. _FALSE. _We'd actually have great cell reception if it

weren't for the monster jammer that blocks any and all foreign transmissions from campus, but

Macey McHenry and her Capitol Hill father certainly didn't need to know that.

"No cell phones?" Macey said as if we'd just told her all students were required to shave their

heads and live on bread and water. "That's it. I'm _so _out of here." And then she turned and stormed

back toward my mother's office.

At least she _thought _that was the way to my mother's office. She was nearing the doors that lead

down to the Research and Development department in the basement. I was pretty sure Dr. Fibs

would have everything in Code Red form, but in the tradition of mad scientists everywhere, Dr.

Fibs had a tendency to be a little, shall we say, accident prone. Sure enough, as we turned the

corner, we saw Mr. Mosckowitz, who happens to be the world's foremost authority on data

encryption, but he didn't look like a mega-genius just then. No. He looked like the resident

alcoholic. His eyes were bloodshot and watering, his face was pale, and he was totally stumbling

and slurring his words as he said, _"Hello!"_

Macey stared at him in disgust, which was actually a good thing, because that way she didn't

notice the thick fog of purple smoke that was seeping beneath the stairwell doors behind him.

Professor Buckingham was shoving towels in the cracks, but every time she got near the purple

fog she'd start sneezing uncontrollably. She kicked the towel with her foot. Dr. Fibs appeared with

a roll of duct tape and started trying to seal the cracks around the doors. (How's that for superspy

technology?)

Mr. Mosckowitz kept swaying back and forth, maybe because the purple stuff had messed with

his sense of balance or maybe because he was trying to block Macey's view, which would have

been tough, considering he can't be an inch taller that five foot five. He said, "I understand you're

a potential student."

But just then, Dr. Fibs's tall, lanky frame crashed onto the floor. He was out cold, and the purple

smoke was growing thicker.

Sharpay and I looked at each other. _This is seriously NOT GOOD!_

Buckingham hauled Dr. Fibs into a teacher's chair and started rolling him away, but I didn't have a

clue what to do. Sharpay grabbed Macey's arm. "Come on, Macey. I know a short—"

But Macey only wrenched her arm out of Sharpay's grasp and said, "Don't touch me, b——." (Yeah,

that's right, she called Sharpay the B word.)

Now see, here's where the whole private-school thing puts a girl at a disadvantage. MTV will lead

us to believe that the B word has become a term of endearment or slang among equals, but I still

mainly think of it as the insult of choice for the inarticulate. So, either Macey hated us or

respected us, but I looked at Sharpay and knew that she was betting on the former.

Sharpay stepped forward, shaking off her happy schoolgirl persona and putting on her superspy face.

This is SERIOUSLY not good, I thought again, just as a white shirt and khaki pants appeared in

my peripheral vision.

Never again would I wonder if the only reason we thought Mr. Solomon was hot was because

we'd been grading on the girls'-school curve; one look at Macey McHenry made it perfectly clear

that even beyond the walls of the Gallagher Academy, Joe Solomon was gorgeous. And _she _didn't

even know he was a spy (which always makes a guy hotter).

"Hello." It was the exact same thing Mr. Mosckowitz had said, but _oh _was it different. "Welcome

to the Gallagher Academy. I hope you're considering joining us," he said, but I'm pretty sure

Macey, Sharpay, and I all heard, I _think you're the most beautiful woman in the world, and I'd be_

_honored if you'd bear my children. _(Really, truly, I think he said that.)

"Are you enjoying your tour?" he asked, but Macey just batted her eyelashes and went all

seductive in a way that totally didn't go with her combat boots.

Maybe it was the cloud of purple smoke wafting toward me, but I thought I might barf.

"Do you have a second?" Mr. Solomon asked, but didn't wait for her to respond before he said,

"There's something on the second floor that I'd love to show you."

He pointed her toward a circular stone staircase that had once been a fixture in the Gallagher

family chapel. Stained-glass windows stood two stories tall and colored the light that landed on

Mr. Solomon's white shirt as we climbed. When we reached the second floor, he held his arms out

at the grand, high-ceilinged corridor that was awash in a kaleidoscope of color.

It was, in a word, beautiful, and yet I'd never really noticed it until then—there had always been

classes to get to, assignments to finish. I heard Mr. Solomon's lecture again—_notice things_—and I

couldn't help feeling that we'd just had our first CoveOps test. And we'd failed.

He walked us all the way to the Hall of History before turning and strolling back toward that

gorgeous wall of stained glass. As Macey watched him go, she muttered, "Who was _that?"_

It was the first enthusiastic thing Macey had said since crawling out of the limo and maybe long

before that—probably since reaTayloring that her father would sell his soul for a vote and her mother

was the B word as used in its traditional context.

"He's a new teacher," Sharpay answered.

"Yeah," Macey scoffed. "If you say so."

But Sharpay, who hadn't forgotten the B-word incident, wheeled around and said, "I _do _say so."

Macey reached for her pack of cigarettes but stopped short when Sharpay's glare hardened.

"Let me lay it out for you," Macey said, like it was some big favor. "Best-case scenario: all the

girls go ga-ga for him and lose focus, which I'm sure is very important at the _Gallagher_

_Academy," _she said with mock reverence. "Worst-case scenario: he's an inappropriate-conduct

case looking for a place to happen." I had to admit that, so far, Macey the B word was making

some sense. "The only people who teach at these places are freaks and geeks. And when you've

got a headmistress who looks like that"—she pointed to my mom in all her hotness, who stood

talking to the McHenrys thirty feet away—"it's easy to see what Mr. Eyecandy was hired for."

"What?" I asked, not understanding.

"You're the Gallagher _Girl," _she mocked again. "If you can't figure that out, then who am I to tell

you."

I thought about my mother—my beautiful mother, who had recently been winked at by my sexy

CoveOps teacher, and I thought I would never eat again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

There are many excellent things about having three girls sharing a four-girl suite. The first,

obviously, is closet space— followed by shelf space followed by the fact that we had an entire

corner of the room devoted to beanbag chairs. It was a very sweet setup (if you'll pardon the pun),

but I don't think any of us really appreciated what we had until two guys from the maintenance

department knocked on our door and asked where we wanted the extra bed.

Now, in addition to our teachers and our chef, the Gallagher Academy has a pretty extensive staff,

but it's not the kind of place that advertises in the want ads (well… you know…except for coded

messages). There are two types of people who come here—students looking to get into the

AlphaNet (CIA, FBI, NSA, etc.), and staff members looking to get out. So when two men built

like refrigerators show up with long metal poles and vise grips, it's fairly likely that those have

been the tools of their trade for a while now—just in a _very different _context.

That's why we didn't ask any questions that night. We just pointed to a corner and then the three of

us made a beeline for the second floor.

"Come in, girls," my mother yelled as soon as we entered the Hall of History—long before she

could have seen us. Even though I'd grown up with her, sometimes her superspy instincts scared

me. She walked to the door. "I've been expecting you."

I'd been working on a doozy of a speech, let me tell you, but as soon as I saw my mother

silhouetted in the door frame I forgot it. Luckily, Sharpay never has that problem.

"Excuse me, ma'am," she said, "but do you know why the maintenance department has delivered

an extra bed to our room?"

Anyone else asking that question in that tone might have seen the wrath of Rachel Montez, but all

my mom did was cross her arms and match Sharpay's scholarly inflections.

"Why, yes, Rebecca. I do know."

"Is that information you can share with us, ma'am? Or is it need-to-know?" (If anyone had a need

—it was us. We were the ones losing our beanbag corner over the deal!)

But Mom just took a step and gestured for us to follow. "Let's take a walk."

Something was wrong, I reaTaylored. It had to be, so I was on her heels, following her down the

grand staircase, saying, "What? Is it blackmail? Does the senator have something on—"

"Gabriella," Mom said, trying to cut me off.

"Is he on the House Armed Services Committee? Is it a funding thing, because we could start

charging tuition, you—"

"Gabby, just walk," Mom commanded.

I did as I was told, but I still didn't shut up. "She won't last. We can get rid of—"

"Gabriella Ann Montez," Mom said, playing the middle-name card that all moms keep in their

back pockets for just such an occasion. "That's enough." I froze as she handed the large manila

envelope she'd been carrying to Sharpay and said, "Those are your new roommate's test scores."

Okay, I'll admit it—they were good. Not _Taylor_-good, or anything, but they were far better than

Macey McHenry's 2.0 GPA would indicate.

We turned down an old stone corridor, our feet echoing through the cold hall.

"So she tests well," I said. "So—"

Mom stopped short, and all three of us nearly ran into her. "I don't run decisions past you, do I,

Gabby?" Shame started brewing inside me, but Mom had already shifted her attention toward

Sharpay. "And I do make controversial decisions from time to time, _don't I, Rebecca?" _At this, we all

remembered how Sharpay came to us, and even she shut up. "And, Taylor." Mom shifted her gaze one

last time. "Do _you _think we should only admit girls who come from spy families?"

That was it—she had us.

Mom crossed her arms and said, "Macey McHenry will bring a much-needed level of diversity to

the Gallagher Academy. She has family connections that will allow entry into some very closed

societies. She has an underutiTaylored intellect. And…" Mom seemed to be pondering this next bit.

"…she has a _quality _about her."

_Quality? _Yeah, right. Snobbery is a quality, so is elitism, fascism, and anorexicism. I started to tell

my mom about the eight-hundred-calorie-a-day thing, or the B-word thing, or to point out that

Code Reds were fake interviews, not real ones. But then I looked at the woman who had raised

me and who, rumor has it, once sweet-talked a Russian dignitary into dressing in drag and

carrying a beach ball full of liquid nitrogen under his shirt like a pregnant lady, and I knew I was

sufficiently outgunned, even with Sharpay and Taylor beside me.

"And if that isn't enough for you …" Mom turned to look at an old velvet tapestry that hung in the

center of the long stone wall.

Of course I'd seen it before. If a girl wanted to stand there long enough, she could trace the

Gallagher family tree that branched across the tapestry through nine generations before Gilly, and

two generations after. If a girl had better things to do, she could reach behind the tapestry, to the

Gallagher family crest imbedded in the stone, and turn the little sword around, then slip through

the secret door that pops open. (Let's just say I'm the second type of girl.)

"What does this have to do with …" I started, but Taylor's "Oh my gosh" cut me off.

I followed my friend's thin finger to the line at the bottom of the tapestry. I'd never known that

Gilly had gotten married. I'd never known she'd had a child. I'd never dreamed that child's last

name was "McHenry."

And all this time I thought I was a Gallagher legacy.

"If Macey McHenry wants to come here," Mom said, "we'll find a place for her."

She turned and started to leave, but Taylor called after her, "But, ma'am, how's she gonna…you

know … catch up?"

Mom considered this to be a fair question, because she folded her hands and said, "I admit that,

academically, Ms. McHenry will be behind the rest of the sophomore class. For that reason, she

will be taking many of her courses with our younger students."

Sharpay grinned at me, but even the thought of Macey's supermodel legs stretching her high above a

class full of newbies couldn't change the fact that two guys with bald heads (that may or may not

have prices on them) were at that very moment making room for her in our suite. The question on

my mother's face was whether we would make room for her in our lives.

I looked at my best friends, knowing that our mission, should we choose to accept it, was to

befriend Macey McHenry. The good girl inside of me knew that I should at least try to help her fit

in. The spy in me knew I'd been given an assignment, and if I ever wanted to see Sublevel Two,

I'd better grin and say "Yes, ma'am." The daughter in me knew there wasn't any choosing involved

here.

"When does she start?" I asked.

"Monday."

That Sunday night I met Mom in her office for Tater Tots and chicken nuggets. We had one hardand-

fast rule about Sunday night suppers—Mom had to make them herself, which is nice and all,

but not exactly good for my digestion. (Dad always said the most lethal thing about her was her

cooking.) Directly beneath us, my friends were dining on the finest foods a five-star chef could

offer, but as my mom walked around in an old sweatshirt of my dad's, looking like a teenager

herself, I wouldn't have traded places with them for all the crème brûlée in the world.

When I first came to the Gallagher Academy, I felt guilty about being able to see my mother every

day when my classmates had to go months on end without their parents. Eventually, I stopped

feeling bad about it. After all, Mom and I don't have summers together. But mostly, we don't have

Dad.

"So how's school?" She always asked as if she didn't know—and maybe she didn't. Maybe, just

like every good operative, she wanted to hear all sides of the story before making up her mind.

I dipped a Tater Tot in some honey mustard dressing and said, "Fine."

"How's CoveOps?" the mother asked, but I knew the headmistress was in there somewhere, and

she wanted to know if her newest staff member was making the grade.

"He knows about Dad."

I don't know where the sentence came from or why I spoke it. I'd spent six days dreading Macey

McHenry's arrival into our little society, but _that _was what I said when I finally had my mother

alone? I studied her, wishing Mr. Solomon would have covered _Reading Body Language _that

week instead of Basic _Surveillance._

"There are people in this world, Cam—people like Mr. Solomon—who are going to know what

happened to him. It's their _job _to know what happened. I hope someday you'll get used to the look

in people's eyes as they put two and two together and try to decide whether or not to mention it.

Am I right to assume Mr. Solomon mentioned it?"

"Kinda."

"And how did you handle it?"

I hadn't yelled, and I hadn't cried, so I told my mother, "Okay, I guess."

"Good." She smoothed my hair, and I wondered for the millionth time if she had one set of hands

for work and another for moments like this. I imagined her keeping them in a briefcase and

swapping them out, silk for steel. Dr. Fibs could have made them—but he didn't.

"I'm proud of you, kiddo," she said simply. "It'll get easier."

My mom's the best spy I know—so I believed her.

When we woke up the next morning, I remembered that it was Monday. I forgot that it was _The_

Monday. That's why I stopped cold on my way into breakfast when I heard Buckingham's

powerful "Gabriella Montez!" echo through the foyer. "I'll need you and Ms. Baxter and Ms.

Sutton to follow me, please." Sharpay and Taylor looked as lost as I felt, until Buckingham explained,

"Your new roommate has arrived."

Buckingham _was _pretty old, and we _did _have her outnumbered three-to-one, but still I didn't see

many alternatives. We followed her up the stairs.

I thought it would just be Mom and Macey in her office—Macey's parents having already been

sent away in the limo if they'd bothered coming at all (which they hadn't)—but when Buckingham

threw open the door I saw Mr. Solomon and Jessica Boden sharing the leather couch. He looked

so completely bored I almost felt sorry for him, and Jessica was perched eagerly on the edge of

the sofa.

The guest of honor was seated across the desk from my mother, wearing an official uniform but

looking like a supermodel. She didn't even turn around when we walked in.

"As I was saying, Macey," my mom said, once Taylor, Sharpay, and I had positioned ourselves in the

window seat at the far side of the room while Buckingham stood at attention in front of the

bookshelves, "I hope you'll be happy here at the Gallagher Academy."

"Humph!"

Yeah, I know _heiress _isn't one of the languages I speak, but I'm pretty sure that translates into _Tell_

_it to someone who cares because I've heard it all before, and you're only saying that because my_

_father wrote you an enormous check. _(But that's just a guess.)

"Well, Macey," an utterly repulsive voice chimed. I'm not sure why I hate Jessica Boden, but I'm

pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that her posture is way too up-and-down, and I

don't trust someone who doesn't know how to properly slouch. "When the trustees heard about

your admittance, my mother—"

"Thank you, Jessica." _How much do I love my mother? Very much. _Mom opened a thick file that

lay on her desk. "Macey, I see here that you spent a semester at the Triad Academy?"

"Yeah," Macey said. (Now, _there's _a girl who knows how to slouch.)

"And then a full year at Wellington House. Two months at Ingalls. _Ooh, _just a week at the Wilder

Institute."

"Do you have a point?" Macey asked, her tone just as sharp as the letter opener-slash-dagger that

Joe Solomon had been absentmindedly fingering while they spoke.

"You've seen a lot of different schools, Macey—"

"I wouldn't say there was anything _different _about them," she shot back.

But no sooner had the words left her mouth than the letter-opening dagger went slicing through

the air, no more than a foot away from her glossy hair, flying from Mr. Solomon's hand directly

toward Buckingham's head. It all happened so fast—like blink-or-you'll-miss-it fast. One second

Macey was talking about how all prep schools are the same, and the next, Patricia Buckingham

was grabbing a copy of _War and Peace _from the bookshelf behind her and holding it inches from

her face just as the dagger pierced its leather cover.

For a long time, the only sound was the subtle vibration of the letter opener as it stuck out of the

book, humming like a tuning fork looking for middle C. Then my mom leaned onto her desk and

said, "I think you'll find there are some things we teach that your other schools haven't offered."

"What…" Macey stammered. "What… What… Are you crazy?"

That's when my mom went through the school history again—the _unabridged _version—starting

with Gilly and then hitting highlights like how it was Gallagher Girls giving each other manicures

who had figured out the whole no-two-fingerprints-alike thing, and a few of our more highly

profitable creations. (Duct tape didn't invent itself, you know.)

When Mom finished, Sharpay said, "Welcome to spy school," in her real accent instead of the

geographically neutral drawl, which is all Macey had heard until then, and I could tell she was

about to go into serious information overload, which, of course, wasn't helped by Jessica.

"Macey, I know this is going to come as a big adjustment to you, but that's why my mother—she's

a Gallagher Trustee—has encouraged me to help you through this—"

"Thank you, Jessica," Mom said, cutting her off yet again. "Perhaps I can make things a little

more clear." Mom reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked like an ordinary silver

compact. She flipped up the lid and touched her forefinger to mirror inside. I saw the small light

scan her fingerprint, and when she snapped the compact closed, the world around Macey

McHenry shifted as the whole Code Red process went into reverse. The bookshelves had been

facing wrong-way-out for a week, but now they were spinning around to show their true side.

Disney World disappeared in the photo on Mom's desk; and Taylor broke out her Portuguese long

enough to say, _"Sera que ela vai vomitar?" _But I had to shake my head in response because I

honestly didn't know whether or not Macey was going to throw up.

When everything stopped spinning (literally) Macey was surrounded by more than a hundred

years of covert secrets, but she wasn't stopping to take it all in. Instead, she screamed, "You

people are psycho!" and bolted for the door. Unfortunately, Joe Solomon was one step ahead of

her. "Get out of my way!" she snapped.

"Sorry," he said coolly. "I don't believe the headmistress is finished quite yet."

"Macey." My mom's voice was calm and full of reason. "I know this must come as quite a shock

to you. But we're really just a school for exceptional young women. Our classes are hard. Our

curriculum unique. But you may use what you learn here anywhere in the world. In any way you

see fit." Mom's eyes narrowed. Her voice hardened as she said, _"If _you stay."

When Mom stepped forward, I knew she wasn't talking as an administrator anymore; she was

talking as a mother. "If you want to leave, Macey, we can make you forget this ever happened.

When you wake up tomorrow, this will be a dream you don't remember, and you'll have one more

dismal school experience on your record. But no matter your decision, there is only one thing you

have to understand."

Mom was moving closer, and Macey snapped, "What?"

_"No one _will _ever _know what you have seen and heard here today." Macey was still staring

daggers, but my mom didn't have a copy of _War and Peace _handy, so she reached for the next best

thing. "Especially your parents."

And just when I'd thought I'd never see Macey McHenry smile…


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

By the third week of school, my backpack was heavier than me (well, maybe not me, but

probably Taylor), I had a mountain of homework, and the sign above the Grand Hall was announcing

that we'd all better dust off our French if we intended to make small talk over lunch. Plus, it was

almost a full-time job keeping rumors separated from facts. (No big surprise who the rumors were

all about.)

Macey McHenry had gotten kicked out of her last school because she was pregnant with the

headmaster's baby. RUMOR. At her first P&E class, Macey kicked a seventh grader so hard she

was out cold for an hour. FACT. (And also the reason Macey's now taking P&E with the eighth

graders.) Macey told a seventh grader that her glasses make her face look fat, a senior that her hair

looks like a wig (which it _is, _thanks to a very unfortunate plutonium incident), and Professor

Buckingham that she really should try control-top panty hose. FACT. FACT. FACT.

As we walked between Madame Dabney's tea room and the elevator to Sublevel One, Tina

Walters told me for about the tenth time, "Gabby, you don't even have to steal the file…Just take

a little—"

"Tina!" I snapped, then whispered because a crowded hallway full of future spies isn't the best

place to have a covert conversation, "I'm not going to steal Macey's permanent record just to see if

she really set the gym on fire at her last school."

_"Borrow," _Tina reminded me. _"Borrow _the permanent record. Just a peek."

"No!" I said again, just as we turned into the small, dark corridor. I saw Taylor standing there, staring

into the mirror that concealed the elevator as if she didn't recognize her own reflection. "What's

wrong with …" Then I saw the little slip of yellow paper. "What? Is it out of order or—"

And then I _read _the little slip of yellow paper.

_S__OPHOMORE __C.O. _CLASS _CANCELED__._

_M__EET OUTSIDE TONIGHT__. 7:00,_

_D__ON__'__T WEAR YOUR UNIFORMS__!_

_-S__OLOMON_

Sharpay's reflection appeared beside mine, and our eyes locked. I started to rip the note from the

mirror, to save it as a piece of Gallagher Academy history, because two things were extraordinary

about it. First, I'd never even _heard _of a class being canceled, much less witnessed it myself.

Second, Joe Solomon had just invited fourteen girls to go on what amounted to a moonlight stroll.

Things were about to get interesting.

I've seen Taylor freak out about assignments before, but that day at lunch, she was as white as the salt

in the shaker as she went over every tiny, perfectly punctuated line of her CoveOps notes—

stopping occasionally to cinch her eyes together as if she were trying to read the answers on the

top of her head. (Maybe she was. With Taylor's head, _anything _is possible.)

"Taylor, _est-ce qu-il-y-a une épreuve de CoveOps dont je ne connais pas?" _I asked, thinking that if

there was a CoveOps test I didn't know about, someone should really bring me into the loop. But

Taylor thought I was trying to be funny.

_"Tu ne la considéras pas sérieuse?" _she nearly yelled. _"Tu sais ques Ke qui se passe ce soir!"_

Of course I _was _taking it seriously, but Taylor wasn't about to believe that, so I abandoned our French

assignment and whispered, "No, Taylor, I _don't _know what's going to happen tonight."

_"Exactement!" _she cried, leaning closer. "Anything in these books could be _out _there!" she said, as

if we were dropping into an actual war zone and not our own backyard. "Or it could be

something"—she looked around and then leaned closer—_"not in the books!"_

I seriously thought she might throw up, especially when Sharpay leaned over and said, "I bet we're

going to bust up a drug cartel that's operating out of a nightclub." (Because she saw that once on

an episode of Alias.)

Taylor gulped, and her knuckles went white as she gripped a flash card. "It won't be anything like

that, Taylor," I whispered. But by this time the entire sophomore class was staring.

"Why?" Tina demanded. "What do you know? Did your mother tell you something?"

"No!" I said, wishing I hadn't gotten them started. "I don't know anything."

"So Solomon didn't ask your mother for two helicopters, three stun guns, and a dozen Brazilian

passports?"

But before I could respond to Tina's ridiculous question, the main doors opened, and the seventhgrade

class came in, doing a lot of _bon jour_ing—"hello" being one of the few phrases they knew

—and the sophomore class forgot about me and went back to doing what it had been doing for a

week—watching Macey McHenry.

She was the first person to ever combine black fingernail polish with a Peter Pan-collared white

blouse (that's not verified or anything—just a guess), and her diamond nose ring looked like a

twenty-thousand-dollar zit, but to an outsider, Macey McHenry might have seemed like one of us.

She walked through the Grand Hall like she owned the place (as usual), picked up a plain green

salad with no dressing (as usual), and walked to our table. Then she plopped down next to Sharpay

and said, "The munchkins annoy," which was totally not usual.

Up to that point, I'd mainly heard Macey say things like "You're in my light," and "If you're gonna

have plastic surgery, you might want to try my mother's guy in Palm Springs." (Needless to say,

Mr. Smith didn't write down the number.) But there she was, sitting with us, talking with us.

Acting like one of us!

Taylor said, _"Je me demande pourquoi elk a décidé a parler à nous aujourd'hui. __Comme c'est_

_bizarre!" _But I didn't know why Macey was feeling so talkative, either.

Before I could respond, Macey turned to Taylor and snapped, "I don't want to talk to you either,

freak."

I was just starting to process the fact that even cosmetic heiresses who get kicked out of a lot of

private schools speak pretty good French, when Macey leaned closer to Taylor, who leaned away.

"Tell me," Macey said in the worst imitation Southern accent I've ever heard, "how can someone

who's supposed to be so smart sound so stupid?"

Taylor's pale face turned instantly red as tears came to the corners of her eyes. Before I knew what

was happening, Sharpay had flown from her seat, pinned Macey's right arm behind her back with one

hand, and grabbed that diamond nose ring with the other so fast that I said a quick prayer of

thanks that the British are on our side (well, assuming we never revisit the Revolutionary War).

"I know you're three years late, but let me give you a real quick, important lesson," Sharpay said in

English (probably because it's harder to sound scary in French). But the strangest thing was

happening—Macey was smiling—almost laughing, and Sharpay totally didn't know what to do.

The rest of the hall was going slowly quiet, as if someone somewhere was turning the volume

down. By the time the teachers stopped talking, Sharpay still had ahold of Macey, I had leaned across

the table to grab ahold of Sharpay, and Taylor had a death grip on a flash card that listed the top five

places you should go to look for black market explosives in St. Petersburg.

"Rebecca," said a male voice. I turned away from the tight-lipped smirk that was spreading across

Macey's face to see Joe Solomon standing behind me, speaking across the table to Sharpay, who was

slowly allowing blood to creep back into Macey's arm. "I understand you could get into trouble

for that," he said.

It's true. Gallagher Girls don't fight in the hallways. We don't slap and we don't shove. But mostly,

we don't use the skills of the sisterhood against the sisters. Ever. It's a testament to how

universally despised and viewed as an outsider Macey was that Sharpay wasn't immediately jumped

from ten directions. But Mr. Solomon was an outsider, too. Maybe that's why he said, "If you're so

eager to show off, you and your friends can take point tonight." He looked at Taylor and me. "Good

luck."

It wasn't a cheery, break-a-leg "good luck," though. It was a watch-out-or-you'll-have-your-legsbroken

"good luck."

Taylor went back to her flash cards, but Sharpay and I stared at each other across the table as our faces

morphed from sheer terror to uncontrolled excitement. For Gallagher Girls, leading a mission is

no punishment—that's the gold-freaking-star! Only a little of the dread lingered in the back of my

mind as I reaTaylored that we were about to play with live ammo— maybe in both the literal and

figurative senses of the word.

Macey returned to her salad while Mr. Solomon added, _"Et n'oubliez pas, mesdemoiselles, ce soir_

_vous êtes des civils_— _ressemblez-y."_

Oh, yeah, just what I needed—fashion advice from Joe Solomon himself. The Grand Hall went

back to normal, but I doubt that any of the sophomores, besides Macey, took another bite. As if

we hadn't known it before, Joe Solomon had just reminded us that we'd soon be venturing out

from behind our comfortable walls, operating on our own for the first time in our superspy lives.

Four years of training had all come down to this, and I for one didn't have a thing to wear.

I'm not sure how it happened, but at some point between one P.M. and six forty-five, the

sophomore class from the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women morphed from a

group of spies-in-training into a bunch of teenage girls. It was pretty scary.

Taylor spent her afternoon becoming the textbook version of what an undercover operative should

look like, copying everything from the patent leather purse to the pillbox hat. (It was a pretty old

textbook.) Then the hallways started reverberating with terrifying yells of "Have you seen my

black boots?" and "Does anyone have any hair spray?"

I was seriously starting to worry about the fate of national security. In our suite, Sharpay looked

awesome (as usual), Taylor looked ridiculous (but try telling her that), and Macey was looking at an

old _Cosmo _as if determining whether green is the new black was a matter of life or death. All I

could do was sit on my bed in my old jeans and a black knit top my mom once wore to parachute

onto the top of the Iranian Embassy, and watch the clock tick down.

But then Tina came busting into our room. "Which one?" she asked, holding a pair of black

leather pants and short skirt in front of her. I was on the verge of saying, _neither, _when Eva

Alvarez ran in.

"Do these go? I don't know if these go!" Eva held up a pair of high-heeled boots that made my

feet hurt just by _looking _at them.

"Um, Eva, can you run in those?" I asked.

But before Eva could answer, I heard someone say, "They're all the rage in Milan." I looked

around. I counted heads. And then it dawned on me who was speaking. Macey stared at us over

the top of her magazine, and added, "If you want to know."

Within minutes, half the sophomore class was in our little suite, and Macey was telling Tina, "You

know, lip liner is supposed to go _on _the lips," and Tina was actually listening! I mean, this is the

same girl who had single-handedly started the Macey-is-Mr. Smith's-illegitimate-daughter rumor.

Little did we know she was one fashion emergency away from turning to the enemy!

Courtney was borrowing earrings; Anna was trying on jackets; and I wasn't sure if I would ever

feel safe going into hostile territory with any of them ever again.

"You know, Eva, what blends in Milan might stick out in Roseville," I tried, but she didn't care.

"You know, guys, hiding in plain sight requires looking plain!" I said, but Kim Lee was wriggling

out of a halter top and nearly knocked my head off with her flailing arms.

"You know, I really don't think he's taking us to the prom!" I shouted, and Anna put Macey's

gorgeous formal gown back into the closet.

_I'm the chameleon! _I wanted to cry. _I'm the CoveOps legacy! _I'd been preparing for this night my

entire life—doing drills with my dad, asking my mom to tell me stories, becoming the girl nobody

sees. But now I was drifting deeper and deeper into the shadows until I was standing in the middle

of my own room, watching my closest friends swarm around our gorgeous new guest, and I was

completely invisible.

"Lose the earrings," Macey said, pointing to Eva. "Tuck in the shirt," she told Anna, then turned to

Courtney Bauer and said, "What _died _in your hair?" (Courtney does have a tendency to over-gel

sometimes.)

Sharpay was sitting with Taylor on her bed, and they both looked as amazed as I felt.

"Hey!" I cried again, to no avail, so I called upon my superspy heritage, and seconds later I was

whistling loudly enough to make the cows come home (literally—that's why Grandpa Montez

taught me how to do it).

My classmates finally turned away from Macey, and I said, "It's time."

A silence had fallen over the room, but then a longer, deeper quiet stretched out.

We were through playing dress-up, and everyone knew it.

"Hello, ladies."

The words were right, but the voice coming to us through the shadows was wrong in so many

ways that I can't possibly describe it here. Really, it would be cruel to all the trees who would

have to give their lives for me to explain what it was like to be expecting Joe Solomon and get

Mr. Mosckowitz.

"Don't you all look very…" He was staring, mouth gaping, as if he'd never seen push-up bras or

eyeliner before. "…nice," he finally said, then slapped his hands together, I guess to stop the

nervous shaking. But he still couldn't steady his voice as he said, "Well, very big night. Very big.

For…" He hesitated. "…all of us."

Mr. Mosckowitz pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and stared beyond the lighted

driveway of the mansion. Even I didn't know exactly what lay in that dark abyss. Sure, there are

woods and jogging trails and a lacrosse field that is handy during Code Reds (and doubles as a

great underground storage facility for the helicopters), but everyone knows the Gallagher Woods

are a minefield—maybe literally—and I started shaking in my sensible shoes.

What if there are snipers? Or attack dogs … or … but before I could finish that thought, I heard

crunching gravel and squealing tires, and turned around to see an Overnight Express truck roaring

toward us. Gee, what's the package emergency? I wondered. But when the driver's-side door flew

open and Mr. Solomon jumped out and yelled, "Get in!" I reaTaylored _we _were the package.

Instantly, my mind flashed back to one of Taylor's note cards. COVERT OPERATION RULE #1:

DON'T HESITATE. Mr. Mosckowitz opened the cargo doors and I climbed inside, imagining that

the truck was like our teachers—it had led a fascinating and dangerous life before it retired and

came to us. But I didn't see a wall of monitors and headsets—none of the stuff the trucks have in

movies—only crates and crates of packages. That's when the truck became even cooler, because

I'm pretty sure Mr. Solomon had stolen it!

"First rule," he warned as we settled inside, "don't touch any of the packages."

Then Mr. Solomon crawled in behind us, leaving Mr. Mosckowitz outside looking up at him like a

water boy who'd just been asked to hold the star quarterback's helmet.

"Harvey?" Mr. Solomon said impatiently but still soft enough that he sounded like a pretty nice

guy, "clock's ticking." He tossed Mr. Moskowitz the keys.

"Oh!" This seemed to wake him up. "Yep. Sure thing. I'll see you"—he pointed toward all of us

—"out there."

"No, you won't, Harvey," Mr. Solomon said. "That's the idea."

Call me crazy, but this wasn't how I'd always pictured the first time I'd be in the dark with a guy

who looks like Joe Solomon. (And I'm pretty sure I speak for the entire sophomore class on that

one.)

"Operatives in deep cover will be given false histories," he fired at us through the dark. "These

histories, including names, dates of birth, and favorite kindergarten teachers, and are called …"

"Legends!" Taylor blurted. A test is a test, in Taylor's mind, and as long as there was a Q&A, she could

handle this mission business.

"Very good, Ms. Sutton," he said, and even in the dark I knew Taylor was a number two lead pencil

away from heaven. "For this mission, ladies, you will be posing as normal teenage girls. Think

you can handle that?"

I'm not sure, but I think that might have been Joe Solomon's idea of a joke—but it was _soooo _not

funny because, if there's one thing we're not, it's normal. But he obviously didn't care about any of

that, because he just plowed on. "When conducting manual surveillance on a subject in a threeman

rotation, the person with visual contact is the …"

"Eyeball!"

"Correct. The person within sight of the eyeball is the…"

"Backup."

"And the final person …"

"The reserve."

"Very good. Now remember, rotate frequently, but not too frequently. Vary your pace and spacing,

and above all…"

I felt the truck come to a stop. The engine turned off.

_Above all, what? _I wanted to cry. _The most important night of my life, and he forgets the punch_

_line! _A small light came on in the ceiling of the truck, bathing us in an eerie, orange-yellow glow,

and I heard music, the kind a merry-go-round makes, and I wondered if my whole life from that

point on would be a house of mirrors.

Mr. Solomon moved a television monitor to one of the shelves and fiddled with some wires. I was

expecting a view of the world outside (or at least something from the WB), but instead I saw what

I'd been seeing for years—the fourteen faces of the sophomore class.

"In the field, ladies, you can never expect to have things go as planned. I fully expect you to

master the ability to improvise. For example, tonight's mission requires a vehicle not owned by

the Gallagher Academy. So"—he motioned around us—"I made alternative arrangements." (Yep.

He _definitely _stole it!)

He passed earpieces to Sharpay, Taylor, and me, and said, "Basic comms units. Don't be afraid to use

them." Then he showed us a pair of tortoiseshell eyeglasses, an I [HEART] Roseville button, and

a necklace with a silver cross. "There are cameras contained within these three items, which will

allow us to follow and critique your progress." The cross swung from his forefinger and, on the

screen, the image of my classmates swayed back and forth. _"These _are for _our _benefit tonight—

not yours. It's a just teaching exercise, ladies, but don't expect us to come to your rescue."

Okay, I'll admit it. I was starting to get a little freaked out at that point, but seriously, who can

blame me? We were all feeling it—I could tell by the way Sharpay's leg twitched and Taylor kept

wringing her hands. Every girl in the back of that truck was on edge (and not just because we

were up close and personal with Mr. Solomon, either). Even though Taylor, Sharpay, and I were the only

ones going outside, we were all more than Gallagher Girls right then—we were operatives on a

mission, and we knew there would come a day when way more than grades would be riding on

what we were about to learn.

The carnival music suddenly got louder as the back door opened, and the first thing I saw was a

bright orange cap as Mr. Mosckowitz peeked in. "They're close," he said.

Mr. Solomon plugged a wire into a speaker, and in the next second I heard my mother's voice

joining the carnival music. "It's great weather for running."

My blood went cold. Anyone _but _Mom, I prayed. Anyone _but _Mom.

You know the phrase Be _careful what you wish for! _Oh yeah, I'm now a really big believer in that

one, because no sooner had the words crossed my mind than Mr. Solomon turned to us and said,

"There are three types of subjects who will always be the most difficult to surveil." He ticked

them off on his fingers. "People who are trained. People who suspect they may be followed. And

people you know." He paused. "Ladies, this is your lucky night." He pulled a black-and-white

photo from the pocket of his jacket and held it up. The face was new to us, but the voice that came

blaring through the speaker saying, "Yes. I should probably get back into that habit myself," was

one we knew well.

"Oh, bollocks!" Sharpay exclaimed, and Taylor dropped her note cards.

"Smith!" I cried. "You expect us to recon Professor Smith?"

I couldn't believe it! Not only was it our first mission ever, but he honestly expected us to tail a

man who had thirty years of experience, and who had seen us every school day since seventh

grade, and who, worst of all, was the single most paranoid human being on the planet! (Seriously.

I mean, he's got the plastic surgery bills to prove it.)

A team of CIA all-stars would probably get made within twenty minutes. Three Gallagher Girls

didn't stand a chance. After all, once a guy's heard you give a report on the trade routes of

Northern Africa, he's probably gonna wonder why you're sitting behind him on the merry-goround!

"But… but… but… he never leaves the grounds," I protested, finally finding my words. "He

would never enter an unsecured area on a whim." Oooh, good one, I thought, as I struggled to

recall Taylor's flash cards. "This goes against the subject's pattern of behavior!"

But Mr. Solomon only smiled. He knew it was an impossible mission—that was why he'd given it

to us. "Trust me, ladies," he said with somber respect, "_no one _knows Mr. Smith's patterns of

behavior." He tossed a thick file folder toward us. "The one thing we do know is that tonight is the

Roseville town carnival, and Mr. Smith, for good or bad, is a man who loves his funnel cakes."

"Well, have fun!" My mother's voice came blaring through the speakers. I imagined her waving at

her colleague as he turned at the edge of town. I heard her breathing become deeper, almost felt

her cross trainers as they struck the dark pavement.

"Your mission," Mr. Solomon said, "is to find out what he drinks with those funnel cakes."

I'd been waiting my whole life for my first mission and it all came down to what? Carbonated

beverages?!

"Subject's at the firehouse, Wise Guy," Mom whispered. "He's all yours." And then, just like that,

my mother and her watchful eyes were gone, leaving us alone in the dark with Joe "Wise Guy"

Solomon and a mathematician in a bright orange cap.

Mr. Solomon thrust the necklace toward me and said, "In or out?"

I grabbed the cross, knowing I would need it.


	6. Chapter 6

I love Sharpay and Taylor. Seriously, I do. But when your mission is to go unnoticed at the Roseville

town carnival while trailing an operative who's as good as Mr. Smith, a genius in Jackie O shades

and a girl who could totally be Miss America (even though she's British) are not exactly what I'd

call ideal backup.

"I have eyeball," Sharpay said, as I lurked across the town square by the dunking booth. Every minute

or so, I'd hear a splash and applause behind me. People kept walking by carrying corn dogs and

caramel apples—lots of calories on sticks—and I suddenly remembered that while our chef makes

an awesome crème brûlée, his corn dogs really do leave something to be desired.

So I bought one—a corn dog, that is. Now, here's where you might start thinking—Hey, who is

she to eat during a mission? Or, isn't it careless to stand there smearing mustard all over a deepfried

weenie when there are operatives to tail? But that's the thing about being a pavement artist (a

term first used to describe me when I was nine and successfully tailed my father through the mall

to find out what he was going to buy me for Christmas), you can't be ducking behind Dumpsters

and dodging into doorways all the time. Seriously, how covert is that? Real pavement artists don't

hide—they blend. So when you start craving a corn dog because every third person you see is

eating one, then bring on the mustard! (Besides, even spies have to eat.)

Sharpay was on the far side of the square, milling around outside the library while the Pride of

Roseville marching band warmed up. Taylor was supposed to be behind me, but I couldn't see her.

(Please tell me she didn't bring her molecular regeneration homework…) Mr. Smith was probably

thirty feet in front of Sharpay, being Joe Ordinary, which was totally creeping me out. Every few

moments I'd catch a flash of his black jacket as he strolled along the streets, looking like a soccer

dad who was worried about the mortgage, and I remembered that of all the false façades at the

Gallagher Academy, the best belonged to its people.

"How you doing up there, Duchess?" I asked, and Sharpay shot back, "I hate that bloody code name."

"Okay, Princess," I said.

"Cam—" Sharpay started, but before she could finish her threat, I heard Taylor's voice in my ear.

"Chameleon, where are you?" Taylor complained. "I lost you again."

"I'm over by the dunk tank, Bookworm."

"Wave your arms or something." I could almost hear Taylor standing on tiptoes, peering through the

crowd.

"That kind of defeats the purpose now, doesn't it?" Sharpay noted.

"But how am I supposed to follow you, following Smith if I can't— Oh, never mind," Taylor said. "I

see you."

I looked around and thought, Oh, yeah, I can see why I'd be tough to spot. I was sitting on a bench

in plain sight. Seriously. I couldn't have been more out in the open if I'd had a big neon sign over

my head. But that's the thing most people don't get about surveillance. No one—not even one of

my best friends—was going to look twice at an ordinary-looking girl in last year's clothes sitting

on a park bench eating a corn dog. If you can be still enough, and common enough, then it's really

easy to be invisible.

"He's flipping," Sharpay said softly, and I knew it was showtime. Roseville might look like Mayberry,

but Professor Smith wasn't taking any chances. He was doubling back, so I got off my bench and

eased toward the sidewalk, knowing Smith was heading toward me on the opposite side of the

square, past Sharpay, who managed to duck her head and act nonchalant. That's when a lot of people

would have lost it. An amateur would have looked at her watch and spun around as if she'd just

remembered some place she needed to be, but not Sharpay—she just kept walking.

Half the town must have turned out for the carnival, so there was lots of pedestrian cover on the

sidewalk between Mr. Smith and me (a very good thing). People don't see _things _nearly as quickly

as they see _motion, _so when Professor Smith turned, I stayed perfectly still. When he moved, I

waited five seconds, then followed. But mostly, I remembered what my dad always said about

how a tail isn't a string—it's a rubber band, stretching back and forth, in and out, moving

independently of The Subject. When something interested me, I stopped. When someone said

something funny, I laughed. When I passed an ice-cream stand, I bought some, all the while

keeping Mr. Smith at the edge of my vision.

But that's not to say it was easy. No way. In all the times I'd imagined my first mission, I'd always

thought I'd be retrieving top secret files or something. Never once did I imagine that I'd be asked

to tail my COW professor through a carnival and find out what he drinks with his funnel cakes.

The crazy thing was that this was _SO _MUCH HARDER! Professor Smith was acting as if those

KGB hitmen were already on their way to Roseville—using every countersurveillance technique

in the book (or at least the books I've seen), and I reaTaylored how exhausting it must be to be him.

He couldn't even go out for funnel cakes without "flipping" and "corner clearing" and

"breadcrumbing" all the time.

Once, things got really toasty, and I thought for sure he was going to make me, but I fell in behind

a group of little old women. But then one of the women stumbled at the curb, and, instinctively, I

reached out to help her. Ahead of us, Professor Smith stopped in front of a darkened storefront,

staring at the reflection in the glass, but I was twenty feet behind him and shrouded by a sea of

gray hair and polyester—which was a good thing. But then the women all turned to face me—

which was a bad thing.

"Thank you, young lady," the older woman said. She squinted at me. _"Do I know you?"_

But just then, a voice blared in my ear. "Did we rotate?" Taylor sounded close to panic. "Did we

rotate the eyeball?"

Professor Smith was getting away, heading back in Sharpay's direction, so I answered, "Yes," but that

only made the woman cock her eyebrow and stare harder.

"I don't remember seeing you before," the old woman said.

"Sure you do, Betty," one of the other women said, patting her friend on the arm. "She's that

Jackson girl."

And that's why I'm the chameleon. I am the girl next door (it's just that our doors have fingerprintreading

sensors and are bulletproof and all…).

"Oh! Is your grandmother out of the hospital yet?" the more fragile of the women asked.

Okay, so I didn't know the Jacksons, much less how Granny was feeling, but Grandma Montez

had taught me that Chinese Water Torture is _nothing _compared to a grandmother who really wants

to know something. I saw Professor Smith nearing Sharpay, but over my comms unit, Sharpay was

laughing, saying, "Yeah, man. Go, Pirates!" as if she lived for Friday night football. Sure, Sharpay's

definition of football might have been soccer, but boys were always boys, and a crowd of jerseyclad

testosterone was assembling across the street. I didn't need surveillance photos to know who

was at the center of the mob.

The old women were staring at me as if I were a needle they were trying to thread, and I said the

only thing I could think of. "Dr. _Smith _says she needs to go south—that she needs to be _toasty." _I

looked past the mob surrounding me and toward the one surrounding Sharpay, hoping she'd heard and

understood that trouble was heading her way.

My hopes dwindled, though, when I heard her say, "Yeah, I _love _tight ends."

"Isn't that nice?" the old woman said. "Does she know where she's going?"

I saw Mr. Smith's dark jacket disappear past the pillars of the library's main entrance and then out

of sight.

"You know she's such a _bookworm," _I said, hoping Taylor was listening. "She can't wait to be near

the _library, _just around the corner from the _library, _in fact," I said through gritted teeth, just as

static and chaos filled my ears.

I heard Sharpay mutter, "Oh, no!"

Ahead of me, the football boys were heading in a pack down the street, but Sharpay wasn't with them.

As far as I could see, Sharpay wasn't anywhere, and neither was Smith.

"Sorry, ladies. Gotta go," I snapped and hurried away. "Bookworm," I said, "do you have them? I

have lost visual with The Subject and the eyeball. I repeat. I have lost visual with The Subject and

the…"

I reached the library and looked in the direction where I'd last seen Mr. Smith, but all I saw was a

long line of yellow streetlights. I weaved back through the crowd, circling the entire square, until

I wound up right back where I'd started, in a vacant lot between a shoe store and City Hall, right

behind the dunk tank.

I should have been more aware of my surroundings, I know—Spy 101 and all that—but it was too

late. We'd been so close … _soooo _close. I hadn't wanted to admit it to myself, but about the time I

polished off that ice-cream cone, I'd honestly started imagining what it would feel like to have Joe

Solomon say, "Nice job."

But now they were gone—everyone—Smith, Sharpay, and Taylor. I couldn't turn tail and run back to

school—not then. We'd come too close. So I darted toward the funnel-cake stand, the one place

we felt certain Smith would have to visit before the night was through, but I didn't pay attention to

where I was going or how completely the Deputy Chief of Police filled the little seat above the

dunk tank. I heard the crack of a baseball hitting metal, sensed movement out of the corner of my

eye, but all the P&E training in the world wasn't enough to help me dodge the tidal wave that

crashed over my shoulders.

Yeah, that's right. My first covert operations mission was also my first wet T-shirt contest, and as I

stood there shivering, I knew it would probably be my last of both. People were rushing toward

me, offering towels, asking if they could give me a ride home.

Yeah, I'm stealthy, I thought, as I thanked them as unmemorably as possible and darted away.

Halfway down the sidewalk, I pulled a soggy twenty-dollar bill from my pocket, bought a Go

Pirates! sweatshirt, and pulled it on.

In my ear, the comms unit had gone from crackling static to dense nothing, and I reaTaylored with a

thud that my little silver cross, though state-of-the-art, wasn't the waterproof edition. Sharpay's band

of football jocks strolled by, but not a single eye looked my way. As a girl, I wouldn't have

minded a little corner-of-the-eye checking out, but as a spy, I was totally relieved that the whole

drowned-chic look didn't undermine my covertness too much. I walked toward the funnel-cake

stand, knowing that at any minute I could turn the corner on disaster—and I guess in a way, I did.

Sharpay and Taylor were sitting together on a bench as Mr. Smith paced before them, and boy, was he

scary just then. His new face had always seemed strong, but I hadn't appreciated its hard lines

until he leaned over Taylor and yelled, "Ms. Sutton!"

Taylor started shrinking, but Sharpay crossed her arms and looked totally bored.

"I want to know what you are doing here!" Smith demanded.

"Ms. Baxter"—he turned to Sharpay—"you are going to tell me why you and Ms. Sutton have left

campus. You are going to explain why you've been following me for thirty minutes, and …" I

watched his expression change as something dawned on him. "And you are going to tell me where

Joe Solomon is right now."

Sharpay and Taylor looked at each other for a long time before Sharpay turned back to Mr. Smith. "I had a

craving for a corn dog."

Well, I have already pointed out the corn dog inadequacy of the Gallagher Academy food service

team, but Mr. Smith didn't buy her argument, which was just as well. He wasn't supposed to. He'd

heard her real message loud and clear—Sharpay and Taylor weren't talking.

Those are my girls.

Then I remembered that I was probably supposed to be doing something! After all, the mission

wasn't over yet—not really. There was still hope. Surely I could salvage some of it. Surely…

I was really starting to hate Joe Solomon. First he sends us out to tail a guy who was almost

bound to catch at least one of us, and then he doesn't teach us what to do when we get caught!

Was I supposed to cause a diversion and hope Sharpay and Taylor could slip away? Was I supposed to

find a weapon and jump Smith from behind? Or was I simply supposed to stroll across the street

and take my rightful place beside them on that bench of shame?

From the corner of my eye, I saw the Overnight Express truck cruise by. It could have stopped

and an army could have swarmed in and saved the day, but that didn't happen; and I instantly

knew why. The street was full of people who could never know the power of the girls on the

bench. I could have saved the sisters, but not at the risk of the sisterhood.

"Get up," Mr. Smith told Taylor. He tossed a Dr Pepper bottle into a nearby trash can. "We'll finish

this discussion back at school."

I stayed in the shadows and watched Sharpay and Taylor walk by. You know you're stealthy if your two

best friends in the universe can pass within twenty feet of you and don't have a clue you're there.

But it was for the best, I figured. After all, I was still a girl on a mission.

I waited until they turned the corner, then I strolled across the street. No one looked twice at me.

Not a soul stopped to ask my name or tell me how much I looked like my mother. I didn't have to

see the look of instant, uncomfortable sadness in anyone's eyes as they reaTaylored I was Gabby

Montez—one of _the _Montezs—that I was the girl with the dead dad. On the streets of Roseville I

was just a regular girl, and it felt so good I almost didn't want to pull a Kleenex from my pocket,

reach into the trash can, and carefully retrieve the bottle Mr. Smith had thrown away—but I did it

anyway.

"Mission accomplished," I whispered. Then I turned, knowing it was time to go back to the world

where I could be invisible, but never unknown.

And that's when I saw him—a boy across the street— seeing me.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

In shock, I dropped the bottle on the street, but it didn't break. As it rolled toward the curb, I

bolted forward and tried to pick it up, but another hand beat me to it—a hand that was pretty big

and decidedly boylike, and I'd be lying if I said there wasn't some inadvertent pinkie-brushing,

which led to a tingly sensation similar to the one I get when we use Dr. Fibs's temporary

fingerprint modification cream (only _way _better).

I stood up, and the boy extended the bottle toward me. I took it.

"Hi, there." He had one hand in the pocket of his baggy jeans, pressing down, as if daring the

pants to slide off his hips and gather around his Nikes that had that too-white, first-day-of-school

glow about them. _"So, _do you come here often?" he asked in a slightly self-mocking way. I

couldn't help myself—I smiled. "See, you don't even have to answer that, because I know all the

trash cans in town, and while _this _is a very nice trash can, it doesn't look like the kind of trash can

a girl like you would normally scavenge from." I opened my mouth to protest, but he went on.

"Now, the trash cans on Seventh Street, those are some very nice trash cans."

Mr. Solomon's lesson from the first day of class came back to me, so I noted the details: the boy

was about five foot ten, and he had wavy brown hair, and eyes that would put even Mr. Solomon's

to shame. But the thing I noticed most was how easily he smiled. I wouldn't even mention it

except it seemed to define his entire face—eyes, lips, cheeks. It wasn't especially toothy or

anything. It was just easy and smooth, like melting butter. But then again, I wasn't the most

impartial judge of such things. After all, he was smiling at me.

"That must not be an ordinary bottle," he said (while smiling, of course).

I realised how ridiculous it must have looked. Under the warmth of that smile, I forgot my legend,

My mission— everything—and I blurted the first thing that popped into my mind, "I have a cat!"

He raised his eyebrows, and I imagined him whipping out a cell phone to notify the nearest

Mental institution that I was on the loose in Roseville.

"She likes to play with bottles," I rambled on, speaking ninety miles an hour. "But her last one

broke, and then she got glass in her paw. Suzie! That's my cat's name—the one with the glass in

her paw—not that I have any other ones— cats, I mean, not bottles. That's why I needed this

bottle. I'm not even sure she'll want another bottle, what with the—"

"Trauma of having glass in her paw," he finished for me.

I exhaled, grateful for the chance to catch my breath. "Exactly."

Yeah, this is how a highly trained government operative behaves when intercepted on a mission.

Somehow, I think the fact that the interceptor looked like a cross between a young George

Clooney and Orlando Bloom might have played into that a little bit. (If he'd looked like a cross

between Mr. Clooney and, say, one of the hobbits, I probably would have been far more capable

of coherent thought.)

From the corner of my eye I saw the Overnight Express truck turn into an alley. I could sense it

idling there—waiting on me—so I turned and started down the street, but not before the boy said,

"So, you're new to Roseville, huh?" I turned back to him. Mr. Solomon probably wouldn't lay on

the horn to tell a girl to hurry up, but even through my busted comms unit I could feel his

frustration, hear the ticking clock.

"I'm…um, how did you know that?"

He raised his shoulders up and down an inch or two as he shoved his hands farther into his

pockets. "I've lived in Roseville all my life. Everyone I _know _has lived in Roseville all their life.

But I've never seen you before."

_Maybe that's because I'm the girl no one sees, _I wanted to say. But _he _had seen me, I realised, and

that thought took my breath away as surely as if I'd been kicked in my stomach (a comparison I'm

perfectly qualified to make).

"But…hey…" he said, as if a thought had just occurred to him."I guess I'll be seeing you at

school."

Huh? I thought for a second, wondering how a _boy _could ever get accepted at the Gallagher

Academy (especially when Tina Walters swears there's a top secret boys' school somewhere in

Maine, and every year she petitions my mom to let us take a field trip).

Then I remembered my legend—I was a normal teenage girl—one he wasn't going to see around

the halls of Roseville High, so I shook my head. "I'm not in the public school system."

He seemed kind of surprised by this, but then he looked down at my chest. (Not THAT way—I

was totally wearing a sweatshirt, remember? Plus, let me tell you, there's not that much to stare

at.) I glanced down to see the silver cross glistening against my new black sweatshirt.

"What…are you homeschooled or something?" he asked, and I nodded. "For what, like, religious

reasons?"

"Yes," I said, thinking that sounded as good as anything. "Something like that." I took a backward

step toward the truck, toward my classmates, toward my home. "I have to go."

"Hey!" he cried after me. "It's dark. Let me walk you home—you know—for protection."

I'm fairly certain I could have killed him with that pop bottle, so I might have laughed if his offer

hadn't been so sweet. "I'll be fine," I called back to him as I hurried down the sidewalk.

"Then for _my _protection."

I couldn't help myself—I laughed as I yelled, "Go back to the carnival!"

Ten more steps and I would have turned the corner; I would have been free, but then the boy

shouted, "Hey, what's your name?"

"Gabby!" I don't know what made me say it, but the word was already out there, and I couldn't

take it back, so I said again, "My name is Gabby," as if trying the truth on for size.

"Hey, Gabby …" He was taking long, lazy steps, backing away from me, toward the lights and

sounds of the festival in full swing. "…tell Suzie she's a lucky cat."

_Have sexier words ever been spoken? _I seriously think not!

"I'm Troy, by the way."

I started running as I yelled, "Good-bye, Troy." But before the words even reached him, I was

gone.

The Overnight Express truck was waiting at the end of the alley when I got there, lights off. I felt

Mr. Smith's pop bottle in my hand, and for a second I couldn't remember why I would be carrying

such a thing. I know. I'm almost ashamed of it now—the fact that ten seconds with a boy had

driven my mission from my mind. But I _did _look at it, and I did remember who I was—why I was

there—and I knew it was time to forget about boys and trash cans and cats named Suzie; I

remembered what was real and what was legend.

As I pulled open the back door of the truck, I expected to see my classmates sitting there, envying

my mission-accomplishing superspy-ness, but all I saw were packages and packages—even the

television was gone, and instead of cries of congratulations, I heard the words _Tell Suzie she's a_

_lucky cat _echoing in my head then growing silent as I realised something was wrong.

I spun in the street. I looked in the cab of the truck, where a bright orange cap lay on the

dashboard, probably where the rightful driver had left it. We had come and gone without a trace,

and now all that was left was that bottle and a long run home.

I told myself that having to run two miles in wet jeans was just karmic payback for having

indulged in both the corn dog _and _the ice cream, but as I reached the edge of town, I wasn't so

sure. As I ran, my mind was free. I was back on the street with Troy. I was watching Taylor and Sharpay

disappear around a corner with Mr. Smith. I was talking to an old woman about a grandmother I

didn't know. I was just another girl at the party.

The lights of the school cut through the leaves of the trees in the distance as my boots beat a

heavy rhythm on the pavement. Damp denim rubbed against my legs. Sweat poured down my

back. Mom is always saying that a spy should trust her gut, and right then my gut was telling me

that I didn't want to go back to the mansion, that I didn't want to be anywhere near Joe Solomon

and Mr. Smith, and by the time I reached the main gates, I would have given just about anything

not to have to go through them.

"Big night, Cam?" A stocky man with a buzz cut and a perpetual mouth full of bubble gum

appeared at the guardhouse doof. He knew my name, but I'd never been introduced to him. If I

had, I probably would have called him something other than Bubblegum Guard. But as it was, he

was just another guy on the staff who worked for my mom, who probably went on missions with

my dad, who knew all the details about my life, while I knew none about his.

I suddenly missed my bench in Roseville. I longed for the noisy, anonymous chaos of the square.

I started down the driveway, but Bubblegum Guard called out to me, "Hey, Cam, you want a

ride?" He gestured toward a ruby red golf cart that sat behind the guardhouse.

"No, thanks." I shook my head. "Good night."

_I'm sorry I don't know your name._

When I reached the main foyer, I started for the stairs. I wanted a shower. I wanted my bed. I

wanted to shake free of the uneasy feeling that had settled in my gut from the moment I saw that

orange cap lying on the dashboard— abandoned. I had the bottle in my hands, but somehow I

knew that wasn't really the point.

Then I heard footsteps and a cry of "Wait!" as Mr. Mosckowitz rushed after me.

"Hi, Mr. M. Great driving tonight," I said. I remembered that it had been his first mission, too.

Something important must have made him chase me down, but for a second his features shifted.

He actually glowed (but not like the time he tested that flame-retardant skin gel for Dr. Fibs).

"You think?" he asked. "Because, well, at that second stop sign, I think I might have hesitated a

little too long. Forty-eight hours or less," he said, with a punch at the air, "that's the Overnight

Express motto; I just don't think a real driver would have waited so long."

"Oh." I gave him a nod. "I thought it was just right— nothing causes delays like an accident, you

know."

His face brightened again. "You think?"

"It was perfect."

I turned again and started up the stairs, but Mr. Mosckowitz said, "Oh, gee, wait. I was supposed

to tell you…" He paused, and I imagined him churning through the gigabytes of his brain. "…

that you are supposed to go to the CoveOps class for a debrief."

Of course I am, I thought as I gripped the bottle. Of course it isn't over.

As the optical scanners swept over my face I heard Mr. Mosckowitz ask, "So, hey, Gabby, it

_was _fun. Wasn't it?" And I realised that one of the most brilliant men in the world needed me to

verify that he'd had fun.

This place never ceases to amaze me.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Sublevel One was dark as I got out of the elevator. I followed the maze of frosted glass through

the light of emergency exit signs and the flickering computer screens. I passed a library filled with

facts too sensitive for a seventh grader to know. I walked along a balcony that overlooks a

massive three-story room the size of a gymnasium that comes complete with movable walls and

fake people, so Sharpay and I call it the dollhouse—it's where spies come to play.

As I got closer to the classroom, the hallway got brighter, and soon I was looking through one

wall of illuminated glass at the silhouettes of my classmates. No one was talking. Not Mr.

Solomon. Not any of the girls. I crept toward the open door—saw my classmates in their usual

seats and Mr. Solomon perched on a low bookcase at the back of the room, his hands gripping the

dark wood as he leaned casually back.

I stood there for a long time, not knowing what to do. Finally, I said, "I got the bottle."

But Joe Solomon didn't smile. He didn't say "well done." He didn't even look at me as he leaned

against that bookcase, staring at the white tiles on the floor.

"Come in, Ms. Montez," he said softly. "We've been expecting you."

I headed for my desk on the far side of the room, and then I saw them—the two empty chairs. I

searched for the eyes of my classmates, but not one of them looked back.

"They should be back by …" I began, but just then Mr. Solomon picked up a remote control and

punched a button, and the room went dark except for a long sliver of light that shone from a

projector beside him. I was standing in the center of its path, silhouetted against the image

glowing on a screen.

In the picture, Sharpay was sitting on the wall in front of the Roseville library. Then I heard a click

and the image changed. I saw Taylor peeking around a tree, which is really bad form, but Mr.

Solomon didn't comment. His silence seemed totally worse. Another click. Sharpay was looking over

her shoulder, crossing a street. Click. Taylor was next to a funnel-cake stand.

"Ask the question, Ms. Montez," he said, his voice carrying ominously through the dark room.

"Don't you want to know where they are?"

I _did _want to know, but I was almost afraid to hear the answer. More images flashed on the screen,

surveillance photos taken by a well-trained, well-placed team. Sharpay and Taylor hadn't known they

were there—I hadn't known they were there—and yet someone had stalked our every step. I felt

like prey.

"Ask me _why _they're not here," Mr. Solomon demanded. I saw his dim outline. His arms were

crossed. "You want to be a spy, don't you, _Chameleon?" _My code name was nothing more than a

mockery on his lips. "Now tell me what happens to spies who get made."

_No, _I thought.

Another click.

_Is that Sharpay? _Of course it wasn't—she was with Mr. Smith; she was safe, but I couldn't help but

stare at the dark, gritty image on the screen—the bloody, swollen face that stared back at me—and

tremble for my friend.

"They won't start with Sharpay, you know," he went on. "They'll start with Taylor."

Another click and then I was looking at a pair of thin arms bound behind a chair and a cascade of

bloody blond hair. "These people are very good at what they do. They know Sharpay can take the

punches; what hurts Sharpay most is listening to her friend scream."

The projector's light was warm as it danced across my skin. He was moving closer. I saw his

shadow join mine on the screen.

"And she _is _screaming—she will be for about six hours, until she becomes so dehydrated she can't

form sounds." My gaze was going blurry; my knees were weak. Terror was pounding in my ears

so loudly that I barely heard him when he whispered, "And then they start on Sharpay." Another click.

"They have _special things _in mind for her."

I'm going to be sick, I thought, unable to look him in the eye.

"This is what you're signing up for." He forced me to face the image. "Look at what is happening

to your friends!"

"Stop it!" I yelled. "Stop it." And then I dropped the bottle. The neck snapped, shattering, sending

shards of glass across the floor.

"You lost two-thirds of your team. Your friends are gone."

"No," I said again. "Stop."

"No, Ms. Montez, once this starts—it doesn't stop." My face was hot and my eyes were swollen.

"It _never _stops."

And it doesn't. He was right and I knew it all too well.

I sensed, rather than saw, Mr. Solomon turn to the class and ask, "Who wants to be a spy now?"

No one raised a hand. No one spoke. We weren't supposed to.

"Next semester, ladies, Covert Operations will be an optional field of study, but this semester, it's

mandatory. No one gets to back out now because they're scared. But you won't ever be as scared

as you are right now—not this semester. On that you have my word."

The overhead lights came on, and twelve girls squinted against the sudden glare. Mr. Solomon

moved toward the door, but stopped. "And ladies, if you aren't scared right now, we don't want

you anyway."

He slid aside a glass partition, revealing Sharpay and Taylor, who sat behind it, unharmed. Then he

walked away.

We sat in silence for a long time, listening to his footsteps fade.

Up in our room, we were greeted by a pile of clothes and accessories that had seemed so

important at the start of our night—but seemed so insignificant now.

Macey was asleep—or pretending to be—I didn't care. She had a pair of those really expensive

Bose sound-eliminating headphones (probably so she wouldn't be kept awake by the sound of air

whizzing past her nose ring), so Sharpay and Taylor and I could have talked or screamed. But we didn't.

Even Sharpay had lost her swagger, and that was maybe the scariest thing of all. I wanted her to crack

a joke. I wanted her to reenact everything Smith had said on their long walk home. I wanted Sharpay

to call out for the spotlight so that our room wouldn't be so dark. But instead, we sat in silence

until I couldn't take it anymore.

"Guys, I—" I started, needing to say I was sorry, but Sharpay stopped me.

"You did what I would have done," she said, then looked at Taylor.

"Me, too," Taylor agreed.

"Yeah, but…" I wanted to say something else, but what, I didn't know.

In her bed, Macey rolled over, but she didn't open her eyes. I looked at the clock and realised it

was almost one in the morning.

"Was Smith mad?" I asked after a long time.

Taylor was in the bathroom brushing her teeth, so Sharpay was the one who answered, "I don't think so.

He's probably having a good laugh about it now, don't you think?"

"Maybe," I said.

I pulled on my pajamas.

"He said he never even saw you, though," Sharpay said, as if she'd just remembered.

Taylor came in and added, "Yeah, Gabby, he was really impressed when he heard you'd been out

there. Like, _really _impressed."

I felt something cold against my chest, so I reached up to feel the tiny silver cross still dangling

around my neck, and I remembered that someone _had _seen me. Until then, the boy on the street

had faded almost completely from my mind.

"So," Taylor asked, "what happened with you after we left?"

I fingered the cross, but said, "Nothing."

I don't know why I didn't tell them about Troy. I mean, it should have been significant—a random

civilian initiating contact during an operation—that's the kind of thing you totally tell your

superiors, let alone your best friends. But I kept it to myself—maybe because I didn't think it

mattered, but probably because, in a place where everyone knew my story, it was nice to know

there was a chapter that only I had read.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Culture and Assimilation isn't like our other classes, so I guess that's why Madame Dabney's tea

room isn't like our other classrooms. French silk lines the walls. The lighting fixtures are crystal.

Everything in that room is beautiful and refined and reminds us that we don't just have to be spies

— we have to be ladies.

Sometimes I hate it and spend hours thinking what a waste it is to teach us things like calligraphy

and needlepoint (aside from the obvious coded message usages, of course). But other times I love

listening to Madame Dabney as she floats through the room with a monogrammed handkerchief

in her hand, talking about what flowers are in season or the history of the waltz.

The day after our first mission was one of those days. I might have blown the mission, but I was

still a whiz at setting tables, so I was actually sad to hear Madame Dabney say, "Oh, dear, girls,

look at the time." I didn't want to put away the good china. I didn't want to go downstairs and face

Mr. Solomon again.

"But before you leave today, girls," Madame Dabney said in an expectant, excited tone that held

my attention, "I have an announcement to make!" The sounds of clattering china all but ceased as

everyone took Madame Dabney in. "It's time for you to expand your education here at the

Gallagher Academy, so…" She adjusted her glasses. "…beginning today after school, I am going

to be teaching Driver's Ed!"

Oh my gosh! I'd completely forgotten about Driver's Ed! Sure, we're allowed to toss each other

over our shoulders or concoct antidotes for rare poisons for extra credit, but when it comes to

tricky stuff like adjusting rearview mirrors and knowing who has the right-of-way at four-way

stops, the Gallagher Trustees don't take any chances. Plus, there's that whole discount-on-yourcar-

insurance thing to consider.

Madame Dabney said, "We'll be going out in groups of four—by suite." She consulted a piece of

paper then looked directly toward Taylor, Sharpay, and me. "Beginning with the four of you."

Taylor looked at Sharpay and me, not understanding. "Four?" she whispered, just as a light seemed to

dawn, and from the back of the room we heard Macey say, _"Sounds like fun."_

(Do I really need to say she was being sarcastic?)

That afternoon, we strolled down the steps of the rear portico and toward the motor pool, where

an old Ford Taurus was waiting for us, its yellow STUDENT DRIVER triangle gleaming in the

sun.

Mom tells me Madame Dabney spent most of her career in deep cover, working the underground

Nazi cells that remained active in France after World War II, but at times like this I have a really

hard time believing her—especially when the woman in question shows up wearing a _Give Safety_

_a Brake! _T-shirt.

"Ooooh, girls! This is going to be such a delight!" she said, and then proceeded to do things like

point to the brake and say, "That makes the car stop," and the accelerator, "That makes the car

go." But the craziest thing of all was that Taylor was taking notes.

She has a photographic memory! She joined Mensa at the age of eight! And yet she felt compelled

to draw a diagram of the steering column and note exactly which button turned on the windshield

wipers.

"Be sure you write down that the steering wheel is round," I said, and she seriously had the W-HE

of wheel written in her little notebook before she realised I was joking.

"Gabby, don't make fun," Taylor said, the way she always did. But just then, Macey mocked,

_"Yeah, Gabby, don't make fun." _Even Taylor wanted to deck her.

"Now, girls," Madame Dabney said, "let's focus." She drew her hands into a position of prayer as

she turned to Sharpay. "Rebecca, dear, how do you feel about starting us out?"

I gasped. Don't get me wrong; I love Sharpay. She's my best friend. But I've been driving since I could

see over the wheel and work the pedals at the same time (something Grandpa Montez swears is a

milestone in every farm kid's life), so why should Sharpay, a native Londoner who spent her

formative years riding the Tube and waving down taxis, be the first to tackle Highway 10?

I consoled myself by thinking that Sharpay _is _my best friend, and she _is _good at everything, or so I

thought until she pulled out onto the highway ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD! Now all

this might have been funny except there's a hill there—did I mention that? A great big can't-seethe-

semi-until-it's-about-to-hit-you-head-on hill. But I was the only one who noticed, because

Madame Dabney was writing on her clipboard, Taylor was doing bio-chem homework, and Macey

was having a fingernail emergency.

I tried to yell, but I must have temporarily lost the power of speech, and Sharpay was the only other

person paying attention to the road, and she thought she was on the right side of it—or left side—

or whatever (you get what I mean).

My voice returned just in time for me to yell "SHARPAY!" and she said, "What?" turning and sending

us swerving into the other lane, which under normal circumstances would have been disastrous,

but in this case really saved our lives. Fate is tricky that way—something I guess every spy

figures out eventually.

Then Sharpay calmly righted the car and headed into town, completely unfazed.

When Sharpay hung a left at the Piggly Wiggly and nearly took out a crossing guard from Roseville

Elementary School, Madame Dabney made her pull into the grocery store parking lot and trade

places with Macey. But Sharpay didn't seem mad, which in itself was a little scary. Instead, she had a

really pleased look on her face as she opened my door and made me push Taylor into the seat Macey

was vacating, which was harder than it sounds, since Taylor had become kind of… _oh, what's the_

_word?…_petrified.

Madame Dabney had obviously learned her lesson with Sharpay, because there were lots of _Easy on_

_the accelerator, dears _and _Okay, there's a stop sign over there, darlings _coming from the front

seat as Macey eased onto the streets.

Things were starting to get pretty calm. I mean, really, it was almost nice, being driven around,

sitting between my two best friends in the world, feeling the sun beam through the windows. It

was almost normal—or as close to normal as three geniuses, a cosmetics heiress-slash-senator's

daughter, and a secret agent in a Ford Taurus can ever be.

Nestled in the backseat between Taylor and Sharpay, I started thinking that it would have been way too

much to ask for us to have a tour of the town before we were supposed to tail one of the most

wanted men in the world through it. _Oh, yeah, that would have been a totally unfair advantage. _In

the daylight, I could see thousands of hiding places where a girl could linger unseen. I recognized

alleys and side streets that would have been great shortcuts. I started, despite everything, to want a

rematch with Mr. Smith. But mostly, I wondered about the boy I'd seen. Was he real? Did he

really walk these streets?

Then, I got my answer.

"What the bloody hell are you doing down there?" Sharpay asked.

"Looking for my contacts," I snapped back.

"You have twenty-twenty vision," Taylor reminded me.

"It's just… I just… I can't look up right now."

I knew the car was stopped, probably at a traffic light— one of only two in the town, so Troy had

to be getting close.

"What?" Sharpay asked in a whisper. "What's going on?" She shifted into spy-mode, sat up, and

looked around. "There's nothing out there. Oh, well, you are missing a real hottie at three o'clock."

Taylor craned her neck around to look. "Ooh, yeah, he's pretty skinny but worth checking out." Then

she shrugged and said, "Oh. Never mind. He's giving us the _Gallagher Glare."_

I have no idea who came up with that name, but it's what we always call the look that people in

town give us whenever they figure out where we go to school. It's the only time I ever hate our

cover story—when people look at me as if I must be privileged, as if I must be spoiled. As if I

must be like Macey McHenry. I want to tell them that I spent my summer cleaning fish and

canning vegetables—but that's just one of a thousand things that the good people of Roseville will

never know about me. Still, when people like Troy look at you like you're a cross between Charles

Manson and Paris Hilton, it hurts a little—even for a spy.

"Yeah, but he's still a _boy," _Sharpay said longingly. "Hey, Cam, come take a peek."

"I am not going to look at some boy!" I snapped. "I don't care how wavy his hair is."

"Who said anything about wavy hair?" _Oh, Sharpay is good._

"I can't believe this!" Taylor said, pacing. She hadn't sat down once since we got back to the mansion

—she just kept going back and forth—trying to make sense of it all. I couldn't really blame her.

Taylor's belief system is pretty natural for scientific geniuses. She wants life to be something that can

be tested in a lab or referenced in a book. She'd thought she'd known me. I'd thought I'd known

myself. Now both of our hypotheses had been thrown out the window, and we hated to start from

scratch.

I couldn't let her see how shaken I was, so I did the next best thing: I got angry.

"Exactly _what _is so unbelievable?" I asked. "That a boy looked at me?" Sure, I'd never be an

exotic beauty like Sharpay or a pixyish waif like Taylor, but I had yet to grow boils all over my body.

Mirrors don't crack when I walk by them. My Grandfather calls me Angel. Was I that unworthy of

being noticed?

"Cam!" Sharpay ordered. "Of course that's not it."

Taylor threw her hands into the air and said, "I can't believe you didn't tell us! I can't believe you

didn't tell someone."

Taylor's definition of _someone _didn't mean _someone. _Taylor's _someone _meant _a teacher._

"So what?" I said, trying to brush the whole thing aside.

_"So what?" Taylor _said. "So, he _saw _you! Gabby, no one sees you when you don't want to be seen."

She eased onto the bed beside me. "When we were trailing Smith and I had to keep you in sight, it

was almost impossible, and I could hear you through the comms unit. And I knew what you were

wearing. And …" She threw her hands into the air. _"So what?"_

I turned to look at Sharpay, my eyebrows raised as if to ask _Are you freaked out, too?_

"You really are amazing, Cam," Sharpay said in a perfectly serious tone, so I knew it must be true.

"Something isn't right, here," Taylor said as I went into the bathroom and started brushing my teeth.

(It's hard to say things that will do lasting damage to a lifelong friendship when you're foaming at

the mouth like a rabid dog.) "Mr. Solomon wants summaries of our mission, so we've got to

include him. He could very well be trying to infiltrate the school through Gabby. He could be a

honeypot!"

I nearly gagged on my own toothbrush. The technical definition of a honeypot is a female agent

using romance to compromise a target. The practical definition is anyone with cleavage. (Rumor

has it Gilly kind of inspired the term.) The thought that Troy could be the male equivalent made

my stomach flip.

"No!" I cried. "No. No. No. He is _not _a honeypot."

"How do you know?" Sharpay asked, playing devil's advocate.

"I just do!" I replied.

But Taylor was shrugging, saying, "We've got to include him in the reports, Cam."

But reports lead to reviews. Reviews lead to protocol. Protocol would lead to two weeks of the

security department tailing him through town while they track down his birth certificate and find

out if his mom drinks or his dad gambles—they've done far more for fewer reasons. After all, the

Gallagher Academy hasn't remained a well-kept secret for more than a hundred years by taking

chances.

I thought about Troy, how sweet and normal he had seemed. I didn't want strangers looking at him

beneath a microscope. I didn't want there to be a file in Langley with his name on it. But mostly, I

didn't want to sit in a room and explain why he'd approached _me, _when the town square had been

full of far prettier girls.

I looked down at the floor, shaking off the thought. "No, Taylor, I can't do it. That is way too high a

price to pay for talking to a girl."

Then Sharpay crossed her arms and grinned deviously in my direction. "I think there's something

more to this story," she said with her usual flair. The rush of blood to my cheeks must have been

enough to betray me, because she leaned down and said, "Spill it."

So I told them about the trash can and the dropped Dr Pepper bottle and, finally, _Tell Suzie she's a_

_lucky cat, _which, even if it hadn't been for the whole genius thing, I still would have been able to

remember verbatim, because sentences like that are like peanut butter on a girl's mind. When I

finished, Sharpay was staring at me as if she wondered whether or not I had been replaced by a

genetically engineered clone, and Taylor had a starry-eyed gaze very similar to the one Snow White

wore while those birds fluttered above her head.

"What?" I asked, needing them to say something—anything.

"Sounds like I could snap his neck with one hand," Sharpay said, and she was probably right. "But if

you go in for that sort of thing…"

"…he's amazing," Taylor finished for her.

"It doesn't matter what he is or isn't. He's…" I struggled.

Taylor shot upright and finished for me. "…still got to go in the reports!"

"Taylor!" I cried, but Sharpay's hand was on my arm.

"Why don't _we _do it?" Her most devious expression flashed across her face. "We'll check him out,

and if he's an ordinary boy, we forget about it. If something's strange, we'll turn him in."

I knew instantly what the arguments against it should have been: we were too busy; it was against

about a million rules; if we got caught, we could be risking our careers forever. But in the silence

of the room, we looked at each other, our mutual agreement settling down upon us in the way of

people who have known each other too well and too long.

"Okay," I said finally. "We'll do the basics, and no one has to know."

Sharpay smiled. "Agreed."

We both looked at Taylor, who shrugged. "Let's face it—he's either an enemy agent trying to

infiltrate the Gallagher Girls through Gabby …"

Taylor stopped midsentence, prompting me to say, "Or… ?"

Her entire face lit up. "He's your soul mate."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Okay, from this point on, if you are related to me or in a position to add things to my "permanent

record" (which I'm assuming at the Gallagher Academy is a little more detailed than what they

keep at Roseville High), you might want to stop reading. Seriously. Go ahead and skip the next

hundred pages. It won't hurt my feelings _at all_

In other words, I'm not proud of what comes next, but I'm not exactly ashamed of it either, if that

makes any sense. Sometimes I think my whole life has been that kind of contradiction. I mean, all

I've heard for the last three years has been _Don't hesitate, but be patient. Be logical_—_trust your_

_instincts. Follow protocol_—_improvise. Never let your guard down_—_always look at ease._

So, see, if you give a bunch of teenage girls those kinds of messages, then, yeah, eventually things

are going to get interesting.

The rest of the week staggered on, our unspoken mission looming in the back of our minds like a

silent but ever-present charge that filled the air, so that every time one of us reached for the

doorknob, I half expected to see sparks.

We were up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning, which was definitely not my idea. Thanks

to Tina Walters's annual _Dirty Dancing _extravaganza, where we watched the "nobody puts Baby

in a corner" scene a dozen times, I was really needing a good "lie-in," as Sharpay calls it. But even

though Taylor might have been at the bottom of our class in P&E, she is the best person I've ever

seen at getting me out of bed, which is saying something, considering the woman who raised me.

Macey was asleep in her headphones, so Taylor felt free to yell, "We're doing this for you!" as she

pulled on my left leg and Sharpay went in search of breakfast. Taylor put her foot against the mattress for

leverage as she tugged. "Come on, Cam. GET. UP."

"No!" I said, burrowing deeper into the covers. "Five more minutes."

Then she grabbed my hair, which is totally a low blow, since everyone knows I'm tender-headed.

_"He's a honeypot."_

"He'll still be one in an hour," I pleaded.

Then Taylor dropped down beside me. She leaned close. She whispered, _"Tell Suzie she's a lucky_

_cat."_

I threw the covers aside. "I'm up!"

Ten minutes later Sharpay was falling into step beside me, handing me a Pop-Tart, as Taylor led the way

to the basement. The halls were empty; the mansion silent. It was almost like summer, except a

chill had settled into the stone walls, and my best friends were beside me. When we reached the

vending machines outside Dr. Fibs's office, I took a bite out of my breakfast and felt the sugar

kick in.

"Ready, then?" Sharpay asked, and Taylor nodded.

They both looked at me. I took another bite and figured that if we'd come this far (and since I _was_

already out of bed), we might as well go all the way.

I pulled a quarter from my pocket and held it toward the slot, but Taylor stopped me.

"Wait." She reached for the coin. "If anyone looks at the logs, my name will send up fewer red

flags," she said, even though nothing we were doing was against school rules. (I know—I

checked.) In fact, we are encouraged to do as many "special projects" for "independent study" as

we'd like, and no one ever said we couldn't make a project out of studying special boys

independently. Still, it seemed like a good idea to hand the quarter over to Taylor and have her be the

one to press her thumbprint onto George Washington's head, drop it into the vending machine, and

order item A-19.

Two seconds later, the vending machine popped open, revealing a corridor to the most state-ofthe-

art forensics laboratory outside the CIA. (If Taylor had ordered B-14, a ladder would have

dropped down out of the mahogany paneling behind us.)

As we walked into the forensics lab, Taylor was already pulling Mr. Smith's pop bottle from her bag

and placing it in the center of a table. The broken shards were pieced together, and I could almost

forget why I had dropped it—almost.

"We'll just run it through the system and see what we've got," Taylor said, sounding very official and

far too wide-awake for SEVEN A.M. on a SATURDAY MORNING! Besides, I could have told

her what we were going to find— nothing. Nada. That Dr Pepper bottle was going to yield the

fingerprints of a Gallagher Academy student (me), a nonexistent-as-far-as-technology-isconcerned-

because-every-year-he-gets-new-fingerprints-to-go-with-his-face Gallagher Academy

instructor (Smith), and a perfectly innocent bystander whose only crime was being concerned for

teenage girls who are forced to pilfer from trash cans (Troy).

I started to share all this with Taylor, but she'd already put on her white lab coat, and _nothing _gives

Taylor more joy than wearing a white lab coat, so I zipped my lips and tried to rest my head on the

desk.

An hour later, Taylor was shaking me awake, telling me that Troy's fingerprints were nowhere in the

system (shocker, I know). This pretty much meant that he'd never been in prison or the army. He

wasn't a practicing attorney or a member of the CIA. He'd never tried to buy a handgun or run for

office (which, for some reason, came as kind of a relief).

"See?" I told Taylor, thinking she'd abandon the hunt and allow me to go back to a proper bed, but

she looked at me as if I were crazy.

"This is only Phase One," she said, sounding hurt.

"Do I want to know what Phase Two is?" I asked.

Taylor just looked at me for a long moment and then said, "Go back to sleep."

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," I said as we crouched in the bushes outside Troy's

house. Another car drove by and the music got louder, and all I could say was, "I can't believe I let

you talk me into this."

"You can't believe it?" Sharpay snapped then turned. "Taylor, I thought you said that house was going to

be empty at eight."

"Well, technically, the Abrams house _is _empty."

I couldn't blame Taylor for being defensive. After all, it had taken her three hours of breaking

through firewalls _(ours, _not _theirs) _and scrolling through the Roseville public schools' computer

system to find out that "my" Troy was Troy Abrams of 601 North Bellis Street. It had taken

another hour to access all the Abrams family accounts and intercept the e-mail in which Joan

Abrams (aka Troy's mom) promised someone named Dorothy that "We wouldn't miss Keith's

surprise party for the world! We'll be there at eight sharp!"

So imagine our surprise as we crouched in the azaleas and watched half the town of Roseville

traipse in and out of a white house with blue shutters at the end of Troy's block. I pulled on a pair

of glasses that only work if you're _really _nearsighted (they're actually binoculars) and zoomed in

on the house where the party was in full swing.

"Keith who?" I asked, forcing Taylor to think back on the e-mail we'd printed on Evapopaper and

hidden under my bed.

"Jones," Taylor said. "Why?"

I handed the glasses to her so that she too could look at the house at the end of the street and see

the _Keeping Up with the Joneses _sign that hung over the front door.

"Oh," Taylor mumbled, and we all knew that the Abrams family hadn't gone far.

I had imagined where Troy would live, but my dreams paled in comparison to what I actually saw.

It wasn't a real neighborhood—it was a TV neighborhood, where lawns are manicured and

porches are made for swings and lemonade. Before I came to the Gallagher Academy, we lived in

a narrow town house in D.C. I spend my summers on a dusty ranch. I had never seen so much

suburban perfection in one place as I looked through the dim streetlight toward the long rows of

white picket fence.

Somehow, I knew a spy would never belong there.

Still, three _were _there—crouching in the dark—until Sharpay pulled out her lock-picking kit and

rushed toward the back door. Taylor was right behind her until she stubbed her toe on a garden

gnome and landed flat on a holly bush with a quiet cry of "I'm okay!"

I helped Taylor to her feet, and seconds later we were right behind Sharpay as she worked her magic on

the lock of the back door.

"Almost got it," Sharpay said firmly, confidently.

I knew that tone. That tone was dangerous.

I heard the music from the party down the street, saw our picturesque surroundings, and a thought

dawned on me. "Um, guys, maybe we should try—" I reached for the knob. It turned effortlessly

beneath my palm.

"Yeah," Sharpay said. "That works, too."

Stepping inside Troy's house was like stepping inside a magazine. There were fresh flowers on the

table. An apple pie was cooling on a rack by the stove. Troy's sister's report cards were clipped

beneath a magnet on the refrigerator— straight A's.

Sharpay and Taylor darted through the living room and up the stairs, and I pulled my thoughts together

long enough to say, "Five minutes!" But I couldn't follow. I couldn't move.

I knew at once that I wasn't supposed to be there—for a lot of reasons. I was trespassing not only

on a house, but also a way of life. I found a sewing basket in a window seat, where someone was

making a costume for Halloween. A book about do-it-yourself upholstery lay on the coffee table,

and four fabric swatches hung on the arm of the sofa.

"Cam!" Sharpay called to me and threw a transmitter my way. "Taylor says this has to go outside. Why

don't you try that elm tree?"

I was glad to have a job. I was glad to get out of that house. Sure, doing basic reconnaissance was

an essential part of honeypot detection. After all, if Troy was getting instructions from a terror cell

or rogue government or something, planting a Trojan horse on his computer and digging through

his underwear drawer was probably the best way to find out about it. Still, it was a relief to go

outside and climb the tree.

I was on the third branch of the tree, tying off the transmitter, when I looked down the street and

saw a figure cutting through yards. He was tall. He was young. And he had his hands in his

pockets, pushing down in a way I've only seen once before!

"Bookworm, do you read me?" I tried; but even though Taylor had done her best to fix my shortedout

comms unit, the crackling static in my ear told me that her hasty repair job hadn't worked. I

stayed crouched against the branch as summer's last remaining leaves swayed around me.

"Duchess," I whispered, praying Sharpay would answer—or better yet—tap me on the shoulder and

scold me for not having a little faith. "Sharpay, I'll let you choose any code name you want, if you'll

just answer me," I whispered through the dark.

Troy was crossing the porch.

Troy was opening the front door.

"Guys, if you can hear me, just hide, okay? The Subject is entering the house. I repeat. The

Subject is entering the house."

The door closed behind him, so I jumped out of the tree and hurried to take cover in the bushes,

constantly keeping an eye on the front door, which sounds great in theory except that meant I

totally missed seeing Taylor and Sharpay crawl out of a second-story window and take refuge on the

roof.

"Chameleon!" Sharpay called through the dark, scaring me half to death as I dove headfirst into the

bushes and then peeked up to see Sharpay peering over the eaves of the house.

They must have thought Troy was home for the night because they started attaching rappelling

cables to the chimney, and they were about to jump off the roof, but then Troy stepped through the

front door!

I watched from the bushes, frozen in terror, as I realised that my two best friends were about to

land on top of the cutest boy I've ever seen—and the apple pie he was carrying.

They couldn't see him. He couldn't see them. But I could see everything.

He took a step. They took a step.

We were seconds away from disaster, and honestly, I didn't even know what I was doing until the

words, "Oh, hi," were out of my mouth and I was standing in the middle of the Abrams family

yard.

From the corner of my eye, I saw terror register on Sharpay's face above me as she grabbed Taylor and

tried to pull her away from the edge, but I wasn't really paying attention to them. How could I,

when a boy as dreamy as Troy Abrams was walking toward me, looking totally surprised to see

me— which was perfectly understandable.

"Hi. I didn't expect to find you here," he said, and immediately I freaked out. Did that mean he'd

been thinking about me? Or was he simply trying to figure out how and why a strange girl dressed

all in black appears in your front yard? (Thank goodness I'd dropped my hat and utility belt in the

bushes.)

"Oh, you know the Joneses," I said, even though I _didn't, _but judging by the line of people going

in and out of the house at the end of the block, it was probably a pretty safe thing to say.

Luckily, Troy smiled and added, "Yeah, these parties get wilder every year."

"Uh-huh," I said, all the while watching as Sharpay struggled to drag Taylor across the roof—to the back

of the house—but Taylor slipped and started sliding down. She tried to hang on to a gutter, but

slipped, and soon she was swinging off the side of the Abramses' house, and my heart was

pounding harder and harder (for a lot of reasons).

Troy looked as embarrassed as I felt as he nodded toward the pie in his hand and said, "My mom

forgot this." He paused, as if debating whether to say more. "Except she never just forgets her

pies." He rolled his eyes. "See, she's kind of famous for her pies, so whenever she goes anywhere,

she likes for people to ask about her pie about ten times before she unveils it, or something." His

free hand was back in his pocket. He looked embarrassed that he'd shared that deep, dark family

secret. "Lame, huh?"

Actually, the pie _did _look really good, but I totally couldn't tell him that.

"No," I said. "I think it's kinda nice." And I did. My mom isn't famous for her pies. No, she's

famous for defusing a nuclear device in Brussels with only a pair of cuticle scissors and a ponytail

holder. Somehow, at that moment, pies seemed cooler.

Troy started to turn, but Taylor was still dangling off the roof, so I blurted out the first thing that came

to my mind, "Was Keith surprised?"

Well, I didn't know who Keith was or why the Joneses were throwing him a surprise party, but

that was good enough to stop Troy and make him say, "No, he's never surprised. But he fakes it

pretty good."

I was something of an expert at faking it myself— especially when I saw Sharpay lower herself to

Taylor's level—the two of them swinging in midair as Sharpay struggled to fix Taylor's tangled cables—but

Sharpay still managed to give me the big thumbs-up and mouth, He's _cute!_

"You wanna go get a Coke?" he asked, and I thought, Yes! There was nothing in the world I

wanted more. But behind him, Sharpay was taking aim at the heel of his shoe, firing a tracking device

into the back of his Nike.

I heard a subtle sound as the device buried itself into the rubber sole, but Troy didn't even bat an

eye. Sharpay looked totally proud of herself, despite the fact that Taylor was still spinning like an out-ofcontrol

piñata.

"So this is where you live?" I asked, as if I didn't know.

"Yeah. All my life," Troy said, but he didn't sound proud of it—not like Grandpa Montez when he

says he's lived on the ranch all his life—like he has roots. When Troy said it, he sounded like he

had chains. I've spent enough time studying languages to know that almost any phrase can have

two meanings.

Behind Troy, Sharpay must have fixed Taylor's cable, because I heard the whizzing sound of two people

in near free fall and then the clanging racket of someone landing in a pile of metal trash cans.

I was ready to knock Troy unconscious and run for it, but he waved the noise away and said, "This

neighborhood has all kinds of dogs."

"Oh." I sighed with relief. There was more clanging, so I said, "Big ones, I guess."

I didn't breathe again until I saw Sharpay clamp her hand over Taylor's mouth and drag her into the

bushes on the far side of the yard.

"Oh, um, I told my mom I'd go get her jacket out of the car," I said, stepping toward the dozens of

vehicles that lined the street.

"I'll go with—" he started, but just then a boy appeared in the street and yelled, "Troy!"

Troy looked at the boy and waved at him.

"You go on," I said.

"No, that's—"

"Troy!" the boy called again, drawing nearer.

"Really," I said, "I'll catch up with you over there."

And then, for the second time, I found myself running away from him, trying to avoid the party.

I ducked behind an SUV, repositioned its side mirror, and watched as the boy met up with Troy in

the middle of the street. He tried to take the pie from Troy, and said, "Did you bake that for me?

You shouldn't have!" Troy punched him hard on the shoulder. "Ow," the boy said, rubbing his arm.

Then he gestured toward where I had disappeared in the dark. "Who was that? She was kinda

cute."

I held my breath as Troy followed his friend's gaze and then said, "Oh, nobody. Just some girl."


End file.
